


About Oaths and Wolves

by DaceyBear



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And he's confused, Arya is back in Westeros, Canon Compliant, Dunk is Gendry, F/M, Gendry doesn't know, POV Gendry Waters, Reunion Fic, Smut, The Sworn Sword, Two years after the Mercy chapter, a knight of the seven kingdoms - Freeform, book canon, book!verse, gendry POV, i am confused, untill he does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:33:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaceyBear/pseuds/DaceyBear
Summary: Many moons have passed and winter endures. Gendry is still at the inn when he learns that Lady Stoneheart is gone. He seeks the brotherhood's new commander, meaning to leave their service for good...--The sun was low in the sky when Gendry passed through the main gate on the stone curtain wall to emerge in the outer ward. Willow led the horses to the stable as he surveyed the grounds. The oaken keep was in worse shape than it had been before. The ward was much different too, filled with people and sounds now. Some two dozen men were training with sword and shield to his right, and Gendry could hear hounds barking in the kennels. In front of the abandoned smithy he wouldn’t come near, he saw the lordling Edric Dayne practice throwing daggers at a strawman, while a girl outdid his every throw and laughed at him. Gendry hid his smile behind a scowl."Where is this Wolf?" That was the reason he had come. To meet the Wolf.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry, Willow Heddle & Gendry Waters
Comments: 108
Kudos: 124





	1. in the wolf's den

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of this work borrows heavily from “A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms”, a collection of short stories by GRRM. If you’ve read it, you’ll notice scenes straight from The Sworn Sword with slight changes (if you haven’t, go read it, it’s great). It’s just that as I read the stories, the similarities between Dunk and Gendry struck me very hard. But this fanfiction does not follow the storyline of the short stories, not at all. Instead, it is my imagining of the events of Arya’s and Gendry’s reunion in the timeline of A Dream of Spring. So a lot is supposed to have happened between the end of A Dance with Dragons and the beginning of this story. Some of it will be clarified, some of it will remain vague. The story follows Gendry and Arya and characters that cross their path, exclusively. There may be an Arya POV going forward, but I’m not sure. This chapter is very tame, beware there will be smut later.

The sun was low in the sky when Gendry passed through the main gate on the stone curtain wall to emerge in the outer ward. Willow led the horses to the stable as he surveyed the grounds. The oaken keep was in worse shape than it had been before. The ward was much different too, filled with people and sounds now. Some two dozen men were training with sword and shield to his right, and Gendry could hear hounds barking in the kennels. In front of the abandoned smithy he wouldn’t come near, he saw the lordling Edric Dayne practice throwing daggers at a strawman, while a girl outdid his every throw and laughed at him. Gendry hid his smile behind a scowl. _Where is this Wolf?_ That was the reason he had come. To meet the Wolf.

He found Harwin then, watching the men fight as he spoke to the red priest Thoros of Myr. Harwin was as much a leader as he could see, overseeing the drills, standing like a lance beside the cheerless priest, stiff and straight, his beard neatly trimmed like Gendry had never seen before. 

“I came to see the Wolf” he announced himself.

The priest regarded him first, a warm expression on his face, though his eyes were dull and his smile tired. “And what is this? Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill, our brother from the forgotten inn? Lad, you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

Harwin studied Gendry with wary eyes. They had last met a fortnight past, when Harwin came to the inn announcing that the Lady Stoneheart was their commander no more. “The wet nurse decided to grace us with his presence” he said loud and clear. Some of the men stopped fighting and came closer to gather around them. Gendry had become used to the mocking.

“I came to see our new commander. Where is him?” A few men chuckled at his words. _Am I missing something?_

“You bring to the wolf what you said you would, Ser Gendry?” there was scorn in his voice. Gendry only glared. “You may be relieved of your vows after we release your dead body from the noose.” 

The men started speaking all at once, japing and laughing. _Of course Harwin spread the word I mean to leave._ The men were calling him craven, naming him ‘maid’, saying he was risking that thick neck of his for nothing good. There was no use arguing. It _had_ been thick of him to say he meant to leave the brotherhood to the man who had been the Lady’s most loyal. 

“And what is all this merriment?” A voice cut through the banter, cool and firm. The silence was immediate. “Will no one share the jape? Ser knight, what brings you to this hall?”

It was the girl he had seen earlier throwing daggers. She had bravo’s blade sheathed on the wrong side of her hip and the steel of the dagger she still held in her hand gleamed as lethal as her eyes. All the air left his lungs at once at the sight of her. She had solemn eyes, large and grey, brown hair cropped short around her head, and a long face. 

If Arya recognized him she made no mention to acknowledge it.

“Forgive us, Lady Stark,” said Harwin, bowing “this great fool has been away from us for many moons, and now he shows up and he did not even know you were back. He surmised you were a man.” 

_You could've told me it was Arya. You should've_. Gendry fumed. He looked from her eyes to the blade in her hand and to her eyes again. “You are the Wolf?” he heard himself blurt out “But you’re –”

“Young?” Arya said it with the hint of a chuckle, as she handed the dagger hilt first to the pretty young lord Edric Dayne who was still by her side. “I’m four-and-ten, as it happens. A woman grown, of an age with Robb Stark when he was King in the North. Or was it female you meant to say?”

Was she mocking him now? Words escaped him for a moment.

“–alive. It was alive.” Gendry did not know where that came from, but he was glad it came. The last to command the brotherhood had been less than that. “I thought that you’d be… I mean… we thought you died at the hands of the Hound. Then we thought you murdered at your uncle’s wedding. Last we thought you gone at the raid on Saltpans. They said you were three times as dead, so…”

“The Stranger seems to follow at my heels, but I keep evading him. I was at the hands of the Hound, that much you know. He never killed me though, not that I’m aware. I was at the Red Wedding too, but I was spared by a blow to the head. When I boarded a ship at Saltpans, the town was peaceful.”

Gendry felt sick to his stomach. _She never died on the raid._ The raid on Saltpans had been savage, half the town put to the torch, children butchered in their mothers' arms, girls raped and killed, amongst them surely the northern princess, last known to have been in the company of Sandor Clegane dressed as a ragged peasant boy spilling blood at the inn by the crossroads. He had put his unfinished sword through the back of Biter’s throat for it. Only she was now alive in front of him. “I… I am happy to hear that, m’lady.” _The oath, you bull, you came about the oath._ He went to one knee then. “I want to say… the oath I swore your mother…”

“My mother?” She glared at him with steel eyes, interrupting his fumbling words. “You never met the Lady Catelyn.” She estated coolly. 

“To you, I meant… the oath I swore to you…”

“And when did you swear an oath to me, ser? If you had ever sworn anything to me, I should think I might remember.”

“Not to you,” Gendry said miserably. _I swore a million oaths to you, all in my head._ “To the brotherhood, I meant to say. The oath I swore to Lord Beric.”

“To Lord Beric, ser? Very well, that one I remember. I was there to see." She sighted. "What of it?” He was about to apologise, again, while the onlookers gave hushed laughs.

All but Harwin. “M’lady,” he broke in, “I believe Gendry came to be rid of his vows now that the Lady is gone. He was with the children at the inn by the crossroads, too craven to face foe out in the field. When I went about the Riverlands looking for my brothers to give the news you were our new commander, he said he wanted to meet.”

“I did, m’lady. I wanted to meet the Wolf.”

“To be relieved of your vows?” asked with disdain a man who wore the weirwood and ravens or Blackwood on his surcoat. The silence that followed was deafening. No one dared even let out a breath.

“Did the courtesy of Acorn Hall die with the Lady Ravella?” the girl asked. _No, not a girl, a woman grown, and my commander no less._ She had only to raise her brows and the crowd began to move about their business. 

Then she actually curtsied as if to welcome him and took a step forward. The she-wolf looked Gendry over from his heels up to his head though her gaze lingered longest on his chest. "The minotaur. A beast, half bull half man. I have never seen such arms before”. She said noticing his garments. He felt dizzy under her gaze. Arya reached forward and touched his tunic, tracing the bullheaded figure with a finger. “Embroidered, and not a stitch crooked. How did you come by the coin to afford this, ser?”

“Not all of a man’s possessions are bought with coin, m’lady” Gendry could feel her finger through the wool. Her hand was callused and scarred. _I’ll bet she’s got scars all over._ His mouth was oddly dry. “Someone gifted it to me.” He managed to say. Long Jeyne had done the embroidery, she'd said he must have clothes to pass for a knight for when outsiders came by the inn. 

“Someone must regard you very highly,” she said as her fingers traced the horn round his heart.

“The sewing was the gift, not the tunic. I got the tunic myself.” It had been looted from a dead man, but she did not need know that. 

“I shall remember.” She drew her hand back, solemn. "The sun is about to set, it is too cold here for a conversation, about oaths no less. Thoros, would you take Ser Gendry to the audience chamber.” 

“At once, my lady.” He heard the priest say behind him. 

“The knight seems tired, and he’ll have a thirst. See that he has something to drink.”

“Must I?” the pink priest sighed “well, if it please you.”

“I will join you as soon as I can.” She looked about the yard as if looking for something “I’ll want Carellen as well. Harwin, go ask her to attend me.”

“I’ll bring her at once, m’lady” said Harwin. 

The look she gave the man was cool. “No need. I know you have many duties to perform with your men. It will suffice if you send the Lady Carellen to my chambers.”

“M’lady,” Gendry called after her. He did not miss the annoyed look she gave him at the title. “Willow is with the horses without. Might she join us as well?”

“A willow?” Her voice was amused. When she smiled, she looked a girl of four-and-ten, not a she-wolf commanding a band of outlaws. _A pretty girl full of mystery and mischief_. “If it please you, certainly.” 

* * *

Gendry had been in Acorn Hall before, the memory was a sour one he visited often. He was in a chamber he did not know though, awkwardly sitting on a stool by the hearth. The dias across the room held three chairs, all empty.

“Don’t drink anything they offer us, Gendry” Willow whispered to him as they waited. Back in the inn, when they had heard only tales about the Wolf, it was said the brotherhood had cleared Riverrun of the Freys by means of cask of poisoned wine. Gendry snorted. 

“She has no need to poison me,” he whispered back. “She thinks I’m some great fool and craven besides.”

“As it happens, the lady Arya is quite fond of fools” said Thoros, as he reappeared with a flagon and three cups. “Yes, yes, I heard. I’m old, not deaf.” He filled two cups with ale to the brim, and one halfway up. The third he gave to Willow, who gave it a long, dubious look and put it aside. Thoros took no notice. “The ale is gone sour,” he was telling them. “But that is all the better, it’s strong. And the poison gives it a special zest.” He winked at Willow as he handed Gendry a cup.

The ale was sour indeed and strong as well, but Gendry sipped it cautiously, and only after the priest had gulped down half of his own cup. Willow crossed her legs and continued to ignore her cup. 

"She does have a soft spot for fools, or else I wouldn't be here…" said Thoros of Myr, “and she likes you well, lad. I know what I am saying. I remember you as kids, and it was not that long ago. Though time does pass differently with war about. When I first saw you might be coming up I half hoped you’d come on your knees towards her and I’d see you two embrace”

Gendry furrowed his brow. “How did you know I was coming, priest?”

"The flames allow me visions from time to time, you know that much…” Thoros interrupted himself to take a gulp of ale, sloshed it about his mouth, swallowed, and sighed his sad sigh Gendry remembered from years before. “I have been in the brotherhood longer than you, as long as it is, serving Lord Beric, and then Stoneheart, and now her.” He sighed. “You would not know our brothers since the hangwoman’s gone, lad. Lady Arya changed us. And for the better too. A quarter of us she put to death, and another quarter vanished. But nobody is joining us anymore. That is the queerest thing. I never thought the number of outlaws would stop swelling”. 

Gendry never thought that either. “Were you there when she arrived?” He wanted to know. He needed to know more.

“Oh, indeed. A dreadful time, Gendry, dreadful. When Lady Arya saw… when she saw what had become of her mother… She burned her, after the Tully custom. The light of the fire on the boat going downriver shone through the night, as it did of yore when her forebears died. Only Lady Catelyn had been dead for years. We could hear her croak and wheeze and rattle as she burned. The sound still haunts me to this day.” The priest had another drink. “And where were you?”

“I was with the orphans.” _I was waiting for her at the inn._

“Thank R’hollor for his mercy, then”. The inn has been the most precious place for the brotherhood, the best guarded, the least suspicious. If the lost children of house Stark ever appeared anywhere in the Riverlands, they would have to be taken there same as the others that littered the land, the boys and girls without a mother or a father or a means to feed themselves. The brotherhood, or Stonehaert, had hoped that the ladies Sansa and Arya could be alive somewhere, somehow, hiding, pretending. Gendry did not believe so, not for a single moment ever since the raid, but he stayed with the kids anyway. He could smith for them and protect them, and recognise Arya if she were to ever come by the inn. Mother merciless had been merciful and agreed he should stay there, where they had been kept in the dark about the brotherhood's plans more often than not - for safety it was claimed. Gendry wasn’t sure. The men most loyal to lady Stoneheart never trusted him. “This talk of the hangwoman is enough to put a man off ale, but cheer is hard to come by in such times as we are living. Winter endures, for all our prayers. It is snowing as far as the Stormlands, the grounds of Highgarden are frozen solid, and boy-king can’t keep his city fed. The queen mother lets the Hand make those enormous experiments, to try and hurry the season; he makes storms and fires that terrify me to think of.”

Gendry knew he meant Qyburn. Mad Maester was how the smallfolk had taken to calling the Hand. He had served the westermen and the northmen at Harrenhal, and gone to King’s Landing with Ser Jaime Lannister. _Where is the golden knight now?_ It was another thought Gendry did not like to entertain. The ugly lady-knight had gone east with him in toe moons and moons ago and there had been no more word of them. _A warrior maid upon a quest._ _Has Arya learned about that?_ The pink priest drank his ale and rattled on.

“There is word of rebellion to the south, and the Sands still sit the boy-king’s court. He cannot hope to keep his crown for very long. If not the Dornish and their foreign friends, then the dragons that linger to the east. Have you heard about the dragons, son? They are again, it’s true. Some say come from the shadow lands, some say revived from stone by a dark spell, the priests of my order shout to anyone who will hear that they do know the truth, that the dragons have come to burn away the winter, to burn the evil from men’s hearts. I was never pious, lad. I’m more pink than red. The Lady Arya says she’s seen a dragon, and I believe her. And in the North the wildlings are massing in Winterfell. Our she-wolf was angry when she heard about that. We will be heading North very soon, I'd wager". 

"You would lose your wager, Thoros" her voice interrupted. She was there, but he had never noticed her entering the room. She moved quietly through the hall and brought the wooden chair from the dias to the other side of the hearth. A young lady trailed after her, wearing a gown of brown wool, its bodice modestly embroidered. Gendry saw it in her face, the features of the late Lady Smallwood, who had put Arya in a dress he ripped apart. He felt contrite now. 

"My ladies." Said Thoros solemnly, lowering his head.

Gendry went to his feet and bowed, but Willow never so much as moved an inch. 

"There is no need for that, Ser Knight." Arya said impatiently. "We're not going North," she said to Thoros. "We're not going anywhere just now. I believe we are here to talk of oaths".

“You're the wolf?” Willow decided now was a good time to speak up. Her voice was high, if with confusion or contempt he did not know. Arya regarded her up and down with a blink of her eyes. "You're the willow." she said simply. 

Willow fumed. She spoke louder this time. "I'm not _the_ willow, I'm Willow. It's a proper name!" 

"For a tree, it is." 

"It is my name, given to me on my nameday. You're not called wolf."

"Men do call me wolf, women and children too. Only those who do not know me, though, I'll give you that. As it happens, it would not be wise to let the folk learn that someone pretending to be Arya Stark is in the Riverlands, girl Willow. Arya Stark died trying to escape that husband of hers up North, everyone knows that. Who did you expect the wolf to be, tell me? How did you picture this fearsome wolf of yours?" 

"I'm not a girl, I'm a woman grown," Willow said not knowing she was mimicking Arya's words from moments before. "I didn't picture nothing, I just came up know what is to become of my inn under your command." 

"Your inn?" 

"Mine and my sister's, yes. I'm Willow Heddle and my sister is Jeyne, Long Jeyne Heddle, the inn was our aunt's and then our father's and now it's ours and I came to make sure that once I'm rid of this stubborn blacksmith whoever comes back with me to the inn is strong and orderly, and can wield a blade, and scare the wolves, and hunt some too, and put the little ones to bed, and on time. So if you're the wolf I want to know who will be coming back with me to my inn, and don't say the Archer, I don't want Anguy getting near Jeyne, nothing good will be coming out of that, don't say the Huntsman either, we won't be sharing our food with his dogs, also I need more coin this time, last time the hangwoman was _not_ generous, and some of the boys are very weak, too, and I don't want to dig no more graves for children, I know they aren't that big but the earth by the kingsroad is frozen as solid as rock." She said all of it in one breath as she was wont to do, and gave Gendry sharp looks when she called him stubborn and when she said the kids needed to be put to bed on time. 

He was still standing, so he sat by his stool again, watching Arya now. She was serious, her face as still as the water on a pond frozen over the winter. 

"Sorry," he apologized on Willow's behalf. 

"What are you sorry for?" and "You shut up Gendry!" Arya and Willow spoke over each other at the same time. It was more than he could take, so he kept silent, fuming. _Is the world upside down?_

"We will come to a solution to please us all, I'm sure." Arya said with a warm smile he did not recognize. Maybe it wasn't really warm at all, in truth. _She is different, and the same._ It was uncanny, to stare at her so close, to see her speak and smile and breathe. "Thoros, have we cups for me and Carellen? My throat is dry." 

He was up quickly "I did not think to bring enough, my lady. I shall return shortly." 

"Do that. Bring what you can find in the larder as well, I won't be joining the men for supper tonight."

She turned to him again after the priest had left, "Did the red priest tell you some fearsome tales about myself?"

"He told us you burned Stonehaert," said Willow. 

"That I did." 

Willow shivered. "She gave me nightmares."

"I won't tell you you can sleep sound and safe now, girl Willow," Arya answered carefully. "Especially not if your protector Ser Blacksmith Knight is to leave the brotherhood." She added, raising her eyebrows and looking at him.

It did not go smoothly after that. He wanted to explain the only reason he had stayed was her, and ever since he was certain she had been killed he had meant to go, but he was afraid of her mother. _No, not her mother, Stoneheart_ . Only that was not really true, so he tried to put into words the feeling he got when he went about the woods everymorn, ostensibly to hunt, but mostly to take down the bodies that hung from the trees before the children could spot them, a feeling like retching and breaking someone's neck at once. _But if I'm not there to do it, will anyone else?_ He shouldn't care to know. He could not coherently say any of that either, so he settled for a grunt and a frown and more silence. 

"I have an offer to make." The sure voice of lady Carellen surprised him, so intent he was on Arya's stare. 

"An offer, you say," Willow said appreciatively. "What type of offer? And who are _you_?" 

"Carellen Smallwood, lady of this castle, is who I am." She said what Gendry had already surmised in a gentle voice, without a hint of authority. And yet. "I mean to open the gates of Acorn Hall to your orphans, if it please them, and you. They'd have stone walls about them and this oaken keep to sleep in, and no worries about wayward travellers or what may come from the woods." 

It was not an offer, that was plain, the children would come to Acorn Hall no matter what pleased Willow. That was the way of it, and it was a good way, Gendry thought. Arya went on to explain a score of brothers would go back to the inn with Willow to fetch the orphans, and she and her sister were welcome to come help care for them, or they could stay at the inn and open it for business. The children should be well adjusted before the wedding, she was saying. 

“The wedding?” he intervened, confused.

“Lady Carellen is betrothed to lord Karyl Vance, they are to marry within the fortnight. The wedding will be held here at Acorn Hall, and they will take procession to Wayfarer's Rest soon after.” 

“Brave and gallant Lord Vance convinced me to journey up from Oldtown to marry him.” Added Carellen with a flare. Gendry looked at her, really looked at Lady Carellen Smallwood. She was young and pretty, with a gentleness about her face that he hadn’t seen in a long time. Her smile was shy, her eyes unguarded. _She can’t be trusted,_ he decided easily. But Arya was laying her hand on top of Carellen’s own and smiling back at her, and he understood nothing at all. _Is this an act? What for?_

Thoros entered the room again that moment, bringing with him a hunk of hard white cheese, hot brown bread and a crock filled with sweet jam. “It’s a cold excuse for supper, my ladies, but I hope you can get some hot porridge from the kitchen before retiring tonight.” 

Gendry got up to help the priest set a trestle table close to the fire, and the five of them shared an uneasy meal. He learned many things. Acorn Hall had a household of two score servants, quite the flock of wooly sheep huddled within its walls, and enough hay to last them another year. Karyl Vance was overlord to Acorn Hall, and vassal only to Riverrun, and an old friend to its lord besides. Carellen Smallwood, who was to become Carellen Vance, could not run two households at once and wished to have her mother's keep well guarded in her absence. _Well guarded apparently means brimming with half-starved children,_ Gendry thought, but did not say. Also, there was the fact that the crown had yet to learn that Lord Vance, welcomed into the king’s peace at the dawn of King Tommen’s reign, was covertly an aide to the outlaws. _If Thoros is to be believed, this King has bigger worries on hand._ That was well and good, so goldcloaks coming up the Kingsroad shouldn’t disquiet him. 

Sometimes Gendry felt like Arya was watching him, but her eyes moved much too fast for him to be sure. He did watch her a lot. Willow did too, Willow watched everybody with deliberation and spoke details of how many children there were in the inn, their ages, their skills, their disobedience. At one point Arya looked straight into his eyes, Gendry imagined she wanted to say something, but she never opened her mouth and then she was looking at Willow again. _Maybe she was trying to say something with only her eyes._ That was much like Arya, but if it were true, he did not get her meaning. So they supped, and soon the food was gone and Gendry had more questions than ever and nothing had been said of oaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yey, hope you enjoyed it. These two have a lot to sort out, this was just table setting!


	2. warm dreams and cold baths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writting this! Thank you very much for everyone who left kudos and comments, it makes all the difference in the world.  
> I wanted to move Arya and Gendry's relationship a whole lot in this chapter, but in an organic way. I hope it doesn't feel too rushed. Let me know what you think!

The mattress he lay on was straw, newer and nicer than the one he was used to. The blankets were woolen and thick, warm enough truly, and braziers provided glowy halos of air, but Gendry found he still missed the scorching heat of the forge. Morning seemed a long way off.

They had gone to the kitchens after they ate, because Carellen and Willow did want that hot porridge Thoros talked about, after all. Gendry had felt the floor waver under his feet when he stood from his stool. Maybe it was the special zest in the ale. Or maybe he had emptied his cup a few times too many. Lady Carellen asked a scullion to show Gendry to the barracks, and he ended up retiring earlier than most of the men. They would be in the common hall now, enjoying ale and song and maybe even women, but Gendry was much too disturbed by the events of the day. He had come to Acorn Hall to leave the Riverlands and the brotherhood and the memory of Arya Stark behind, and instead… _I should sleep._ He would have a clearer head in the morning, surely. They had mounted before the break of dawn, and ridden hard. _That_ was why his head was hurting. He should sleep.

Sleep did not come easy though. Gendry’s head was full of beasts, wolves, harts, dragons... full of daggers, swords and falling starts... full of leafless trees and ravens and acorns, and children with sunken cheeks and sullen eyes... And she was there too, the Wolf, Arya Stark of Winterfell. He could see her sharp face, her slender arms, her shorn brown hair. It made him feel guilty. _I should be thinking of Alyce the whore. I should be thinking of Jeyne._ She had embroidered a knight with a bull’s head upon his best tunic. The minotaur, Arya had called it. _I should be dreaming of anyone but Arya Stark_ , Gendry often told himself, but what did he know? He was stupid. Just thinking of her was proof enough of that. _Maids and whores alike smile at me, why is it I never laid with one, not even kissed them lips?_ Arya had smiled at him today in the yard, and touched his chest, his tunic had a loose thread where her nail had nicked the embroidery. _She’s not for the likes of you. She is too young, too clever, and much too dangerous. She is a lady._

Drowsing at long last, Gendry dreamed. He was running on a hilltop amid huge tree stumps, running toward Arya, and she was throwing daggers at him. Each knife she threw flew true, and pierced him through the chest, yet the pain was strangely sweet. He should have turned and fled, but he ran toward her instead, his legs dragging as they often did in dreams, as if the grounds had turned to mud. Another dagger came, and yet another. She seemed to have no end of knives tucked into the belt at her waist. Her eyes were grey and silver and full of mischief. _Your eyes are the same color as those knives,_ he meant to say to her, but the daggers disappeared from her belt, and the belt disappeared from her waist, and the clothes disappeared from her body. Across her breasts and stomach he could see white and pink scars, and her nipples were dark and hard as pebbles. The knives made him feel a dying man as he went stumbling to her feet, but somehow he still found the strength to grab her by the waist. With one hard yank he pulled her down on top of him and kissed her lips. 

He woke suddenly. It wasn't Arya's lips against his mouth, but her hand, muffling his breath. The hand was gone as soon as he opened his eyes, now he saw a single finger over pursed lips, _Arya is come in the middle of the night to ask me to escape this place with her,_ he thought, but that was mad. It wasn't Arya at all, it was Willow, how could he have mistaken them? He tried to rub the drowsiness from his eyes with angry fists. She was up already, biding him follow. 

It was colder outside the barracks, without the benefit of walls and blankets, and darker too. Gendry shuddered and huddled under his cloak, aware it was a moonless night. 

"What are we doing here?" He whispered, annoyed. 

"I needed to _talk_ to you, Gendry. Only to you, without _ladies_ in attendance” 

“Talk, then.”

“What you reckon? Should we bring the children?”

 _"We?_ I’m leaving. I should take my chances and leave just now, since you woke me.”

"You haven't got chances, the gates are barred! And there are guards.” 

_And Arya isn’t here to slice their throats. _“I’m not going anywhere, my head hurts. Say what you will.”__

“The children. The inn.”

“What about 'em? Oh, you think you have a say?”

Willow huffed and puffed. "Of course I have a say! And I say bring them. Only I don’t know if I come with them, or stay at the inn with Jeyne. Without you there…”

“Of course you stay with the children. You’re the one to rule them, Willow. You know it same as I. And Anguy could take care of the inn with Jeyne. They should marry. He’ll keep her safer than all those crossbolts and the weak arms behind them.”

Something in her eyes shifted when he said that. They became angrier and harder than usual, almost hurt.

“They’re not all weak!” She protested. She always did, when Gendry or anyone insulted the orphans; she seemed to think that to berate them or to belittle them was her privilege only.

“No, not all," he agreed. "I’m going back to bed. There was snoring, but at least no one was _talking_.”

“ _You_ were.” she taunted. “You were moaning in your sleep.”

With that, he turned on his heels and left her to the night. 

* * *

They left Acorn Hall when the sun was highest in the sky the next day, which would mean hours of riding in the dark, later. That was fine. They knew the land. If you followed the roads, bending in and out from this lord’s lands to that lord’s lands, the inn took a sennight to reach from Acorn Hall; through game trails and streambanks and up and down some hills, it should take their party only four days, same as it had taken him and Willow when they came. 

It had been a long time since he'd last ridden with brotherhood, longer still since Arya had been there. Much was still the same. Anguy rode with Willow and Gendry in the rear, making bawdy jests and teasing. Tom wasn't there to play his harp, and he'd learned Lem was one of the brothers the Wolf had sentenced to death, but the archer made for pleasant company. His teasing meant no harm, much unlike Harwin’s. Arya went ahead of the column the whole time, Ned Dayne at her right. They made an impressive figure, side by side like that. The lord of Starfall was a man grown now, he supposed. _He could be ruling his castle in Dorne, yet he’s here._ Should Gendry have a castle in Dorne, he would’ve raced there faster than thunder followed lightning. He thought so, at least, though it was no use thinking about castles that weren’t his. Or about a woman that wasn’t his, for that matter. 

He dreamed of Arya again when they made camp at night, and no one woke him middream. They barely slept, truly, but when they did they had to huddle close to the fire, all of them, _and no one complained to me about no moaning._ Willow was a real liar. His brothers could never waste the opportunity to mock Gendry, and there was no mocking come dawn. They were a small party, too. At Acorn Hall, Arya had spoken of a score; they were only a dozen though, himself and Arya and Willow included. And he knew each one. _Not a single new face, that’s queer._ The men hadn’t been chosen for being the strongest or the fiercest fighters, Gendry could see, but the better riders. Arya set a merciless fast pace, and they were crossing the inn’s low wall of moss-covered stone in only three days' time, on a clear night lit with stars and a thin sliver of moon. The hooves drew the crossbows to the windows as sure as dawn drew the sun to the horizon, though much sooner than the sun would set they disappeared again and Jeyne came out the porch.

The stables were across the yard, north of the main building, so that was where he led his leathered horse, same as the others. The roof still held a layer of frozen snow above the thatching, he noticed. When winter let out and the snow melted, it would be a ruin... but for the nonce there was no cause for worry. The men were moving silent towards the inn, awkwardly and slowly. _There’s no way we set out tomorrow,_ Gendry realized. The ride had taken its toll on every one of them. Gendry himself was beyond tired. _Good thing I don’t have to bother finding a place to sleep_. Jeyne would have soup in the common room, or onion broth at least, but Gendry did not think to follow his brothers. Tonight he would sleep by the forge, like every other night of this century but for the last few.

“Why you look so wistful, Ser Gendry?” Arya’ voice surprised him. She was brushing her mare’s coat, when she should’ve gone straight to the inn to claim a bed. 

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why, are you not a knight?”

“I am,” he conceded. “I’m also a smith though, and I’ll be going to my forge now.” _My forge._ It came unbidden, the _my_ before the forge. Gendry wouldn’t dwell on it, he was much too weary, but the sight was sweeter than he had anticipated. _I was supposed to never set eyes on it again._ That meant little and less now; those very same eyes of his had set on the _three times as dead_ Lady Arya of house Stark, had they not? And after setting, it had been difficult to look anywhere else, too. 

* * *

A loud whiny awoke him. Gendry felt as if he’d just closed his eyes for a moment when the sound pierced through his dreams and woke him to a startle. The forge was close to the stables, and he could hear most everything inside when he wasn’t smithing. What had proved useful before was unsettling now; Arya’s voice came through, first telling someone not to bother, that she would be fine, and then firmly saying to whoever it was that they were to stay at the inn to take account of the children. Still inebriated with sleep, he dressed hastily and made towards her voice. 

It was the lordling that she was speaking to, _of course_. As he entered the stables, Gendry watched Arya put a foot on the stirrup and swing up into her saddle. She glimpsed him by the door, he saw. Dayne didn’t, so rapt he was with Arya. He put a hand on her knee, as if to keep her from leaving, and said something Gendry couldn’t understand. The rider was unfazed.

“Gendry will accompany me.” She said loudly, nodding with her chin in his direction. Edric Dayne turned abruptly, his sandy hair flapping with the movement, and settled his dark blue eyes on Gendry. 

“Morning.” Was all Gendry cared to say. 

“It’s almost midday, brother,” the dornish lord answered amiably. 

“That makes it morning still.” He looked at Arya “Where do you think I’m going?”

“I’m going for a ride. Will you come? Ned doesn’t think I should stray too far by myself.”

She didn’t seem to care at all what Edric Dayne thought, and that’s why he answered what he did. “I’ll come,” he said. 

They rode silently for a long time, Arya a few steps ahead of him, showing the way. They were going south by east, but he had no inkling where. It was his belly that made him speak. 

“Did you bring any food?”

She glanced over her shoulder to look at him with raised eyebrows and wide eyes. 

“You haven’t broken your fast!” She said, realizing it just now. “You didn’t eat last night, either.” He didn't expect her to have taken notice of that. Arya brought her mare to a halt just a few yards ahead, and handed him oaten bread and sheepmilk’s cheese from her saddlebag. 

“Where are we going, m’lady?” He asked between mouthfuls. 

“You’re speaking to me now?”

“I was never not speaking to you.”

“You said nothing the entire way here. Even when we supped together, you barely spoke either.” He was chewing, so she went on. “Did I make such a terrible impression at Acorn Hall? I shouldn’t have teased you in front of Harwin’s band.”

“Your northman has no love for me.”

“You don’t worry about Harwin. He's just bitter because we haven't started north yet... Why are you so far away, though? Not happy to see an old friend?” 

There was a quizzical smile on her face. Gendry examined his boots.

“Last I remember, you said if I wanted to be an outlaw knight and get hanged you didn’t care,” he blurted out. _I didn't even know I remembered that._

When Arya spoke again, her voice was soft. “I was angry,” was all she said.

“I’m sorry.” He had to be. He chanced a look at her, found her eyes intent on him. “Where _are_ we going, though?”

“The Trident.” The mood had changed some, he felt.

“What’s so interesting about water?”

“It’s not the water I wanna see.”

“What is it then?”

Arya was mounting again. “The place I left Sandor Clegane to die.”

After another hour or three, they came upon some willows rising from a jumble of weathered rocks. Weeping willows, with branches bare now, but together the rocks and trees formed a sort of natural fort. Arya entered, he followed. _In the spring, the leaves would hide us from both river and trail._ She had just recounted her own version of what had happened at the inn all those years ago, and how the Hound left a trail of blood all the way to this place. He felt guiltier than ever. Arya was looking at the forest grounds among the trees, as if looking for something. Gendry wondered if she’d seen the stains on the floor in the inn’s common room, where the Tickler’s blood had soaked deep into the wood. If anything from that day remained here, it was now hidden deep, under layers of snow and hail. Suddenly Arya was crouching, and with terror he watched her lay down with her back against a jut of stone covered in frozen moss. 

“Get up!” He snapped. “Get up, get up, you’ll get soaked, are you stupid? It’s freezing, Arya! Get up!”

She wasn’t even wearing her fur cloak, a plush grey thing that had hung from her shoulders all the way from Acorn Hall to the crossroads. The cloak she wore now was brown wool, and a little threadbare. She looked up at him, defiant, solemn. 

“I will. Don’t you worry.” Her voice was even and emotionless. “I’ll get up...” but she didn’t move. 

Gendry swallowed the words he meant to say. “Was it here he died?” He asked, cautious.

“No. This is where I tended to his wounds.” 

That puzzled him. _Why would you?_ Then he remembered that once he hoisted her up on his shoulders so she could reach dying men in crowcages, to serve them water from her own cup. _A mercy._ A crowd of angry villagers had gathered to watch them, but she had not been afraid. She had always been a fierce little thing, he could barely keep up. Gendry looked down at her now, in her bed of white cold. By all rights she should be shivering, but saw no sign of movement in her. _Fierce,_ indeed _._ _Not so little though,_ the traitorous thought came. He held out a hand and she took it to help lever herself up.

They rode for another half hour further east, and then Arya turned her mare around and that was it. The trek back was unnerving. Arya should never have laid down on the ground, that _had_ been stupid. First she was still telling him tales; the story of how she’d been cheated trading a palfrey, and some of the cocky cabin boy on the braavosi galleas she boarded at Saltpans, but soon her words were clipped, and he realized her lips were blue from the cold. She had to be properly soaked through, and there was nothing to do but continue towards the inn. After days of hard riding their horses couldn’t abide even to canter for long stretches, so they advanced slowly at a walking pace. 

The sun was all but gone by the time they arrived back at the inn. Arya had been silent for a long time, but at least she wasn’t shaking with chills when they came within. It was a quaint scene they found, older children running about, the brotherhood men dicing in a corner, Willow overseeing the meal of the little ones, wooden spoon firm in hand and a menacing expression on her face. The familiarity of it all clashed with the presence of she-wolf at Gendry’s side. 

“Where are you bedding?” He asked her.

Arya’s colorless lips curved upwards. She seemed to find something amusing, whether it was his question or the scene unfolding in the common room he couldn’t say. 

"Why'd you wanna know?" 

"I'll ask Jeyne for a tub and hot water. ‘Could bring to your room while you warm by the fire." 

She smiled at him. "That would be good. No need to go up the stairs splashing hot water, though... There’s a hearth in garrets below the bell tower. It's there I slept, I can heat water myself." 

She crossed the room and pulled off her boots to warm her feet by the fire. Dayne was by her side in an instant, but rushed away to get his cloak from where it hung on a peg in the wall when he took in her state. He watched Arya huddle under the purple mantle, and strode to the kitchen for that kettle. It was busy there, and scarce more pleasant than the common room. Tansy stood on a bench in the corner kneading dough for tomorrow’s bread, Jeyne scoured a cauldron he had mended a few too many times, Anguy hovered about her asking how he could be of use, and Jon Penny sat on the floor skinning a winter hare under Harwin’s instructions.

“What you can do is you can help me fill some pails, Archer.” 

Jeyne looked up at him with a grateful eyes. “What you need pails for?” She asked.

“A bath, what else. Have we a tub on the third landing, Jeyne? Or else I have to take one up those narrow steps too?”

“There’s a tub in one o’ the rooms there under the bell tower, Gendry. I don’t know which one.”

Gendry crossed to the scullery to get the iron kettle and fill the first pail with water, but Anguy didn’t move. 

“Why a bath now?” He enquired, plainly displeased. “We ride out _tomorrow_.”

“M’lady is wet. Wet and cold. She had the genial notion to lie on the snow.”

The words had barely left his lips when he saw it’d been a mistake. Harwin rose from his perch above Jon Penny and his half-skinned hare, so abruptly the boy let his knife fall to clatter on the floor. His eyes were hard, his hands bloody.

“You useless bull.” He said as he crossed the kitchen, no doubt towards his lady of Stark.

Gendry pretended not to care. He glimpsed the northman pacing back and forth behind Arya’s back when he passed the common room with the pail under one arm and the kettle under the other, and never answered the insult. _That will lead to no good,_ he reminded himself. The Wolf would put her own to death, after all. 

* * *

The garrets were low and dusty, but there was a window of milky bubbly glass facing the crossroads there. He had filled the tub half full with cold water and hung the kettle in the hearth to boil when Arya entered the room. She was alone, and wearing only her riding leathers too. It was a relief not to see her cloaked with the colors of Starfall, more than Gendry cared to admit. 

“Why didn’t you don that today?” He asked, pointing at the fur cloak draped over a chair.

“It would’ve saved you some trouble, wouldn’t it?”

“It would’ve made you warmer, m’lady.”

“It would’ve made me much too conspicuous, don’t think so? A richly dressed maiden riding alone midwinter.”

“You weren’t alone.”

“I wasn’t. We have Ned to thank for that. Still, wool makes for a better semblance, should we come upon the vile outlaws I heard roam about the Riverlands.”

He was in no mood for mocking. 

"Thoros said the brotherhood is dwindling." All she did for an answer was take a long breath in. "It's the truth of it then," he continued. "The folk don't want no fighting anymore... I'd thought they'd like the Wolf better than the Lady." He did. It was for the better that people did not get dragged into the brotherhood, but he never figured it would happen. He still did not understand. Arya must have sensed the reason for such change eluded him.

"It won't do to go north with men who aren't strong and grown and eager. There are very few men like that. Fewer women." She lowered her voice and her eyes "I don't want too many people dying on the journey." It rang of admission. He felt an iron hand grip at his throat. _She's sad._ It made him pause. It made him want to hold her. It made him want to sob, that someone still cared men died at all. _She cares_. He swallowed his own care and shrugged. 

"They'll die here anyway."

"Not of frostbite, if they are inside their homes. Not of walking on empty bellies if they aren't walking at all. And they won't be hanged either, should they serve the wrong soldier a meal or a tankard of ale." 

"S'pose not." 

She turned her back to him then. Arya walked towards the hearth, wrapped her hands with a rag, and carefully lifted the kettle. _She’s stronger than she looks,_ he mused. She was dumping the hot water in the tub, her back still to him, when she spoke again. "Would you take everyone who volunteered, Ser Gendry?" Her voice was different now, he noticed with a pang of disappointment.

"You should. You should not waste any man. Or woman, for that matter." She’d spoken of women too, so he would as well. "You should have as many arms as you can, of course. The fight will be fairer if you have the numbers." _Many will die so you don't._

She turned again to face him, and looked him in the eye before she spoke. "You don't believe that. Not for real. But you're worried." 

It confused him, what she said. It was true enough, though, that he did not feel it was right to send fieldhands and fishermen and cobblers to die up north. But what was he to say? _Go on by yourself, m'lady, take the precious Lord Dayne, who wants to wed you, and Harwin the northern, who misses his dear home so much, and maybe that pink priest who's taken you for his goddess. Begone and go fight for your frozen forgotten castle and find lords and ladies to fill it once you rid it from the wildlings. Kill them all, men and women and children, because they sit behind the walls you say are yours. Kill them all or die trying, m'lady, I don't care, but take that blond lordling and that stern northman away before I punch either of them or both._ He could not say any of that. He didn't even know if he wanted to. 

"What am I worried about?" He huffed out. 

"Me, of course." She said with certainty.

That took him aback. It was not his place to worry about her. They weren’t kids anymore, and now she made him dig his chin in his chest like she never could before. She didn’t want him to, he could see as much, the way she was disappointed every time he averted his eyes from hers, or bowed or called her m’lady, serious, without mocking. _What am I to do?_ Lowering his head, he turned and made to leave her to her bath. 

"Don't go." He stopped in his tracks and turned back. Her voice had changed again, that's why he stopped. Had she commanded him not to go, he would be gone already.

"Why not?"

A look was all the answer that he got. Arya had big eyes, and somehow her shorn hair made them look even larger. In the dimness of the chamber lit only by the hearth they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen – deep and dark and grey.

 _Valyrian steel eyes_ , thought Gendry. In Westeros, few valyrian blades remained, but Gendry had seen more of the metal than most people, he’d wager, back in the Street of Steel when he apprenticed under Master Tobho Mott. He’d not put his hands on any of it since he was a boy working the bellows, but he knew by heart the way it glimmered in the light, and how it rippled and folded within itself to create dark liquid patterns of smoke and ash… and how sharp its edge was. He could not fathom how such blade would feel against his skin, but being pierced by Arya’s eyes hurt enough. 

She was dipping her hand in the water, as if to test the temperature. Gendry stood where he was, waiting for the answer she'd have for him. The sound of the water rippling filled the room for a long moment. 

"You want to fuck?" he heard her ask. 

He blinked at her, startled. She was the one waiting for an answer now, leaning against the tub.

"I'd dishonor you," was what came out of his mouth.

"You would not."

"You don't know what you're talking." 

"You don't know what I know or not."

"You are crazy, m'lady." Somehow she was close enough to grab. "You can't say that to a man." 

Arya lifted her chin and her eyes darted to his. "I just said it to you." She was still leaning against the tub, had he crossed to room to be so near her? Gendry shook his head and took a step back. 

"You're asking for it, Arya."

She widened wicked eyes at that. "I am."

 _That is not what I meant._ "Promise you won't be talking shit like that again!" His voice sounded hoarser than it should.

"I'll promise if you fuck me."

She smiled with lips and eyes to crumble his resolve. He made to grab her by the waist, but Arya suddenly put her hands on his chest and stopped him. Her brows were furrowed. "What's wrong?" He croaked.

"Steps approaching." Her face was stone. 

It couldn't be, he'd heard nothing, but when he glanced back over his shoulder the door was screeching open and Jeyne’s stern face appeared behind it. 

"Jeyne," said Arya, stepping around him to walk towards the innkeep "is aught amiss?" 

Willow was there too, her slight frame outlined against the bright corridor, alight with torches is every sconce. Light flooded into the room, the shadows of the three women much larger than they were. 

"There was a brawl. I thought you must know sooner rather than later." 

"There is brawling still." Willow added, petulant as always. 

Arya huffed a little laugh "How come a brawl after supper is such an important matter? Let the men tend to themselves" she said with finality. 

"Lord Dayne is injured, m’lady." 

Gendry saw as color drained from her face. That was all that happened though, for Arya did not move an inch, nor her voice had changed when she asked "What happened? Where do I find him?" as if she were merely curious.

"We took him to a room on the second floor." Was all Jeyne offered for now. She seemed tense. Willow was wary as ever, watching with interest as Arya went to the chair to retrieve a small purse from the folds of the cloak that hung there. They left the room swiftly, Gendry trailing after Arya unsure of what to do with himself. He couldn't just stay inside Arya Stark's bedchamber and wait for the lady to return, could he? 

Arya walked on sure feet next to Jeyne, but Willow lagged behind, falling in with him "It was a cut to the thigh," Willow provided in a hushed tone, as they walked down the narrow steps "he will be fine, I’ve seen Jayne patch up gashes deeper than-”

“What are you doing here Willow?” he interrupted. 

“I came with you all the way from the castle, Gendry, you taken leave of your senses?”

“Here _here_ , Willow, _now._ You know what I mean, why did you come up with Jeyne? What is it to do with you?”

“Oh, that...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit where credit is due:  
> The dream sequence comes heavily inspired from a similar one in the novella The Sworn Sword.  
> The room Arya stays in at the crossroads is the same room Catelyn Stark stayed in in A Game of Thrones, when she captured Tyrion Lannister.  
> The scene where Arya asks if Gendry wants to have sex is a play on the scene in which she asks him to fight her in A Clash of Kings.


	3. a wolf's man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was hard! I had the last scene to this chapter written since before I posted chapter one, but it proved more difficult than I anticipated to get Arya and Gendry in place for it to happen. Each chapter turns larger than the last by more than a thousand words, I’m loosing it. I have parts of chapter four written down already, and it’s fun. And smutty, too, if you care about that. I've bumped the rating up to explict, which I think better describes this work. Again, I hope this doesn’t feel too rushed. Please let me know what you like about it and what you don’t, so I can always improve. Kudos are cherished, feedback is awesomest! 
> 
> Note: If you are so concerned, here are the ages I’m working with in this story. This is actually how old I believe these characters to be, based on the books. Mind that this story takes place roughly two years after the end of Dance and the Mercy chapter, and around three years after we last saw Gendry feature in Brienne’s story in Feast.  
> Arya 14  
> Willow 14  
> Carellen Smallwood 16  
> Edric Dayne 16  
> Gendry 18  
> Jeyne 20  
> Anguy 21

“Lift his hips.” Arya ordered, and Jeyne obliged. She yanked the lord’s breeches down to his calves, then realized he was still wearing boots and huffed. “Here help me with these laces.” Jeyne scurried to the foot of the bed and worked on one boot while Arya undid the other. They pulled the boots and the breeches and Arya was back at the bedside, examining the wound. It was close to his groin, but the blood had seeped to soak the hose gartered under his knee. His lordship lay on the featherbed shaking, mumbling some and whimpering more, and opening and closing his eyes without seeing. 

“Shit.” The word left Arya’s lips almost a whisper. She looked up then, to where he was standing close to Willow. "You should go don your stocking, Willow. You'll catch a chill like that."

Willow's eyes widened and her cheeks colored with what Gendry thought looked like embarrassment, and to his astonishment she left the room without saying a word. He understood nothing. 

"Is the archer hurt?" Arya asked after silence had swallowed Willow's steps to deepen Gendry’s confusion. 

"He'll be bruised." Jeyne shrugged. 

"Damn him! He could've _killed_ Ned." 

"Wasn't him." Jeyne’s words were slow and quiet. "Jon Penny saw them at each other, got nervous... he tried to split them up.” She stopped to catch her breath. “Only he had the skinning knife still in hand.” She added, sounding apologetic and afraid.

Arya looked incredulous "Which one is Jon Penny?" She demanded, returning her attention to the wound, feeling around the cut with the pads of her fingers. 

"Yellow hair, less scrawny than the others. He's a good one. He got white as a sheet when he saw the blood, the boy, he's only just turned ten, he never knew he was slashing so deep. Willow will be stern in his chastisement, you'll see if she don't." 

_Willow will probably smack him so hard he won't sit longer than Dayne._ Jon Penny had been with them long, and was nothing if not dutiful. Gendry wondered if Jeyne was acting such because she feared what Arya would do to the boy. It was so absurd a notion that mirthless laughter erupted from his throat uninvited. 

That made the women look up at him, gray eyes angry, brown eyes dismayed. He frowned at them both.

"Why was Dayne and Anguy fighting?" He wanted to know. _And how did Arya know the brawl was with Anguy, in the first place?_ , but he didn’t ask that. 

Jeyne said nothing, and Arya huffed loudly again. 

"Ned caught them, didn't he?" She was looking at Jeyne, eyebrows raised, and he was utterly lost. 

“I wasn’t there. I was outside, filling up the barrel with snow. Gendry’s gotten all the snowmelt for the tub and I thought I’d better bring more inside for washing the bowls from the sup–”

“What _happened_?” Arya cut her short. 

“I don’t _know_. You shouldn’t ’of sent Willow away if you wanted to, m’lady.”

“Don’t call me that,” Arya retorted, but without anger. “Bring some of the water from the tub, and the kettle too.” It took a moment for Gendry to understand Arya was speaking to him now. Ordering him around, really. “Then you fetch Willow. I want to hear this out.”

He found her in the kitchen, helping Anguy nurse a black eye with a jagged chunk of ice. Gendry would bet he’d gotten some on his ribs too, by the way he hugged his middle with one arm. _The lordling went tough on him._ He glanced at the hem of Willow’s skirts as they walked up the stairs, to find her ankles bare above her slippers. _Nothing is making sense._ When they reached the sickroom she started talking before being asked, that way of hers without a pause to breathe between the words.

“He got it all wrong,” she was saying. “He got it all wrong, it was not our fault, we was alone in the kitchen when he came in, and I wasn’t saying _no,_ he must’of thought I was saying no, I think, I think that’s what he thought, that I didn’t want Anguy, he pulled Anguy away from me and hit him in the face and dragged him to the common room, I ran after them but he wouldn’t _listen_ to me! I told him, I did, I was saying _not now_ is what I said! I’d said _wait ‘til all the kids is asleep_ , but m’lord didn’t hear that part. We were just teasing, Anguy and I, but he got it all wrong and punched Anguy and Anguy punched back and Jon was there all proud showing the men the work he’d done on that hare, and…” the air left Willow as if she’d taken a blow. 

He felt breathless as well. Gendry stared at limp and pale Edric Dayne and wondered to himself how stupid he was, to understand it all wrong, too, and for so long. At least his mistake had been to less dreary consequences... _He pulled Anguy away from me. He got it all wrong, I wasn’t saying no._ He stared at Willow, and had to force himself to think of her as a woman. Yes, he’d gotten it all wrong, too. That whole thing about not wanting Anguy looking after the inn… The hurt in her eyes when Gendry spoke of marriage... Sweet talking the older sister must have been part of their plan, to get her blessing most like. _Or does Jeyne know? How long has this been going on?_ Anguy wasn’t trying to woo anyone, the woman he wanted was his already, and Jeyne wasn’t the reason he would come by the inn as often as he could, Willow was. _She’s the same age as Arya_. 

Arya, who’d asked him if he wanted to fuck, just now. _I’m helpless and hopeless._ The she-wolf seemed dissatisfied with the whole thing, but gave Willow leave to go with only another recommendation to put her stockings back on. 

That became a long night, after a long day, after a long journey. After what seemed like hours of fussing about Edric Dayne’s groin, cleaning the slash with warm rags and rubbing it with unguents from her purse, Arya finally stepped away and asked Jeyne if she’d stitch the wound. Gendry saw as Jeyne’s eyes got big as saucers and she sucked in a shaky breath, but then Arya was talking again, voice soft but urgent, praising the yellow stitches on his black tunic, and saying that she had some pure silk thread and a fine silver needle sharp enough for the task, and going on about how sewing the cut closed would stanch the bleeding that much better and make it heal all the faster, until Jeyne was nodding along. She accepted needle and thread from Arya’s purse and sat on a chair by bed, and set to work as if she were just mending a cloak frayed at the hem.

“I’ll need the kitchen. You keep her company, and call on me should _anything_ happen.” Arya said to him and left the room. Edric had fallen asleep or passed out, he couldn’t judge, but it looked like he felt nothing at all as needle pierced through skin and flesh, back and forth. Gendry rubbed at his eyes. It was only when Jeyne’s hands were there he saw the cut was lower in the thigh than he had thought before. _That’s less likely to be serious, then._ Relief flooded him with the thought, to his own surprise.

There were other things to worry about, still. He would have to inquire Willow later, and the archer too, most definitely. _What if I’d been the one to catch them_ , Gendry wondered. Would he have hit Anguy without listening first? _Of course I would. I’d reduce him to pulp._ Part of him was glad Anguy had gotten hurt, too. If not for the boy Jon, Gendry had no doubt he’d be in even worse shape. Although he was older and had long taut arms that made him deadly with a bow, Anguy was gangly and clumsy, while Edric Dayne had become strong and robust, a tall, wide-shouldered youth with the sure movements and quick reflexes of a swordsman. _He’s not so tall and strong as I, though._ Gendry had formidable strength in him, and a cruel right arm forged by hammering. His eyes felt heavier each time he blinked, but Jeyne didn’t take very long, and after she was done he helped her move a brazier close to the sickbed, so Edric wouldn’t be cold despite his nakedness.

He woke without ever realizing he’d fallen asleep, with the noise of spitting and sputtering. 

“What’s this?” Came the weak and baffled voice of the wounded man, who was staring at the cup in Arya’s hands with a disgusted face.

“Water, boiled with vinegar in an iron pot.” She answered impatiently. “It’s the only thing you’ll be drinking for a long time, best get used to it. This and willow bark tea, for the pain. There’s no poppy milk here. Or lemons. Lemons make for a better elixir than vinegar, but this will do.” She put the cup to his lips again, and he sipped slowly but diligently, face scrunched.

“Hey,” Gendry called from his chair. “You feeling fine?”

It was Arya who answered. “Of course he’s not fine,” she said with a harsh look. Then she softened her gaze to put Dayne at ease. "You'll get better. But do you have to drink up," she said to him. 

Gendry took in the scene: the fierce she-wolf held an earthen cup to the dornishman’s lips and had her eyebrows knitted with worry, and even though she'd left the room to come back again with potions, she still wore the woolen leggings and leather jerkin she had lain on the forest ground with. He had meant to retire to his forge, but instead found himself offering to sit the night vigil so she could at last go to her bath. Edric thanked him for the company with a wan smile, then thanked Arya for _everything_ with a brisk kiss to her fingers, and Gendry had to hold himself not to lurch at him and rip Jeyne’s stitches apart.

* * *

They took six days to reach Acorn Hall again, with fifteen orphans in tow this time. Every man rode double with one of the small ones, and two more horses from the inn’s stables carried the four big ones, Tansy, Pate, Wat and Ben, who were two- or three-and-ten, though they weren’t really sure. Willow carried two kids herself, baby Daisy strapped to her back and Watty sitting between her chest and the reins. Each of the orphans showed a different state of unrest, confusion, excitement or fear, but all of them needed to stop all too frequently, to make water or eat or sleep through the night.

Gendry rode with Jon Penny the first three days, but then Arya wanted to ride with him and Lyla became his companion. Arya rode with a different child everyday, and was often laughing with them, telling them tall tales and asking them for their own stories and secrets. Harwin was ever a shadow behind her, and Gendry took the head of the column by her side, to stay away from Willow and Anguy who still rode the rear. It unnerved Gendry some, to see them japing and bantering same as they always had, as if nothing had happened at all in the inn, as if he hadn’t found out they were lovers. How had he missed that, before? Edric Dayne had stayed behind at the crossroads; Jeyne would take good care of him, Arya was convinced. Beardless Dick had stayed too, to guard the place and hunt and keep the wolves at bay. 

They never had problems with wolves on their way. Come night, their camp was noisy, almost cheerful. The children would eat, and listen to Arya’s fascinating stories, and be glad Willow didn’t have her spoon with her. Willow was always there, though, fretting that they were not to stray from camp and that they had to eat enough to be strong through the journey, but not too much so everyone could have their share, ever threatening them with the oakwood spoon she was sure she’d find in Acorn Hall’s kitchens. She tried to talk to him too, a few times, but he wasn’t in the mood. _When we reach the keep. I’ll have to hear her out then. And Anguy too._

One evening, when they sat round the fire at the foot of a lofty hill, Arya shared the wondrous tale of how she had once disguised as a boy and travelled with men of the Night’s Watch; it had been a wonderful adventure, to hear her tell it, full of wicked foes she overcame, fuller or weird but kind people who helped her and protected her at times, and it ended with a night-battle at a stone holdfast where she and her companions won a victory against an army of manticores. Gendry went to his bedroll feeling sick to his stomach after that, the bitter taste of anger hard to swallow. _It wasn’t like that,_ he wanted to scream. He misliked most of Arya’s ribald stories and sailor’s tales, but never before had he known the truth of what she left unsaid. That was worse still. _The memories she allowed me when we rode along the trident weren’t so joyous_. She did that for the children’s sake, he supposed, but it made no matter. He contented that torment wouldn’t last much longer, now with them less than a day's ride away from Acorn Hall. Sleep was fitful that night, fretful dreams came and went, and when he felt Willow’s hand over his mouth again he just slapped it away and turned on his side.

“You were easier to wake up than that." 

It was the faintest of whispers. The warm words against his ear made him all gooseflesh. Hesitantly, Gendry opened his eyes, but there was Arya Stark crouched before him, moonlight dancing on her skin.

“I wasn’t sleeping.” He watched his words turn into white puffs and engulf her face.

“I know,” she smiled through the mist. “I’m going up the hill. Come with?”

He went, of course. Mudge had the watch, and Arya let him know they’d be back by dawn. As the light of the campfire turned smaller and smaller behind them, it occurred to him this was the first time he was alone with Arya since the day they went riding along the Trident. _You want to fuck?_ He could talk to her now, ask her things. He could. He would. Certainly.

Arya watched him askanse all the while they rode in silence, until Gendry finally summoned his courage and spoke. 

“Is it true Lord Tully sits Riverrun now?” was what he asked. 

She gave him an enquiring look. “Is it _there_ you mean look for service when you leave the brotherhood?”

“I never said that. Just wanted to know, is all. We heard the Freys of Riverrun washed up on the Quiet Isle, dead and rotting.”

She didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her eyes were trained on the trail before them. “There are no Freys of Riverrun,” she finally gave. “It's true those who held the castle are dead. As cannot be the hero, let me be the monster, and lesson them in fear in place of love,” Arya uttered quietly into the night. “It’s also true that it was poisoning that did it, you must've heard that... but you got some wrong, Lord Tully is still a captive in the westerlands. Brynden Blackfish’s not a lord.”

“Is he not a Tully?”

“He is.”

“He’s a lord then.” 

“To a sense,” she conceded. “He’s not Lord of Riverrun. His nephew holds this title, the Lord Edmure. And he is in the westerlands.”

“Is it there _you_ mean to go after Lady Carellen’s wedding?”

For the first time, Arya seemed unsure about what to answer. Gendry remembered that look on her face once, a lifetime ago, when they were somewhere in this very woods, east of Harrenhal, hungry and afraid. _I'll tell you if you'll tell me_ , she had said warily, but he’d had nothing to tell and said as much. She’d chosen to confide in him when they’d been kids. _My name is Arya, of House Stark_. It hurt deeper than it should, then and now. _She doesn’t know if she should trust me._

“No, don’t tell me of your secrets, m’lady. It’s naught to me where you’ll be going.”

“I share my secrets as I please. It’s no secret to my men where I’m going though. We head north from Acorn Hall. Before Vance arrives with his party, too.”

That shook him some. “I'm your man?”

She halted to stare at him, long and hard. “Am I not the Wolf?” She asked, voice firm. “You were knighted in the Hollow Hill. You’ve not as yet forsaken the oath you swore to Lord Beric, Gendry.”

“Nor do I mean to.” 

That escaped his lips before he even thought it. He _did_ mean to. _I promised Willow I’d only escort the orphans, then leave._

“Is that so?”

“I mean to swear my sword to you. I forged it myself. It’s yours. If you’ll take it, m’lady.” His words fell from him thick with feeling.

“Don’t mock me,” Arya said, but there was no fight in her.

“I’m not. Mocking you. I’d never.”

She laughed at him then, and just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon he was laughing too, so much so he had tears in his eyes. The wind was stronger uphill, it swept their laugher and added to his tears. His vision was a blur, and another memory came to him unbidden as they silenced. It was the image of Arya beneath him… not like she appeared to him in dreams and not like she was now; Arya like she'd been when they were kids, skinny and determined, squirming under his weight, fighting back while he tickled her over that pretty lady's gown she wore. _That's got to be the last time I laughed._ Such awareness filled his chest with equal amounts of warmth and dread. _What little joy I ever found was with Arya._

“I’ll have your sword,” her voice brought Gendry out of his sulking. He spied a smirk plastered to her face, and felt heat color his red.

“Good,” he managed. It was inevitable to swallow a few times before he could continue. “I’m not going to stop now and kneel on the snow though. I’m not as stupid as you.”

She frowned at that, but only urged her mare forward. The ride up was easy, what with the light of the moon that hung almost full on the sky above, but only when they reached the hill’s brow did he recognize the place.

“No harm can ever come to those as sleep here,” he recited when he saw the stumps, same as the singer Tom had once told him.

“Just so,” Arya answered.

Thirty-one mighty weirwood that once have been, they had counted together when they were the children. It was here Arya had stood to watch the fading sun side by side with the blond lordling when he was still a squire. _It was here I dreamed I kissed Arya._ He hadn’t ever come back to High Heart after Lord Beric, but it appeared to him in dream. Gendry shivered. _You want to fuck?_

“Why did we come here?” Wind blew so strongly that it felt like someone was yanking on his cloak, trying to disrobe him.

“To listen.”

A small pale shape was creeping between the bushes among the stumps. More shivers coursed through his spine. It was a tiny dwarf woman, he saw when she came nearer, her skin the color of milk, wrinkled and papery. Thin white hair flew wild about her head; queer eyes she had, red like garnets, and they were set on them. She waddled slowly, leaning on a gnarled black cane, so Arya had time enough to give Gendry her reins and dismount. He understood, rueful, that he was to stay put. 

Stay put he did. Arya gave the little old woman a waterskin Gendry suspected wasn't filled with water at all, and they talked. He could see them but not hear them, for the wind carried the words away. _What is the point of this?_ He questioned as much when Arya finally swung up to her saddle again, but she only repeated she’d come to listen. _I shouldn’t have come at all._ He’d never passed a chance to be near her, though he knew he should start. 

Dawn sneaked on them as they made their way down the High Heart. Gendry could see the camp stirring, fires being stumped, bedrolls being packed. The little ones were formed into a disorderly row and Pate was giving out their share to break the night's fast. Willow did that most mornings, but she was busy with Lyla's hair, surely tousled by some boy on a dispute over placement on the line. Lyla was a small one among the little ones, no more than seven, but she always wanted to be first at everything. _Today she succeeded_ , Gendry thought with fondness when he spotted the girl eating a stale oatcake while Willow tried to arrange thin flaxen strands into a braid on the nape of her neck, impatience poorly concealing her affection. Jon Penny had an oatcake too, but he was feeding it to baby Daisy in his arms. Tansy and Ben were nowhere to be seen, which never failed to cause worry. Wat was there with the brotherhood men, tending to the horses. _He fancies himself one of them,_ Gendry figured. _Does the boy think to come along when we set north_? It was an uncomfortable notion, with him being so young. _Arya won't have it,_ he told himself, and took solace in the thought. 

The men all hailed Arya when they descended upon camp, and Wat who wasn’t a man yet mirrored their salute. Harwin bowed his head stiffly and never so much as glanced at Gendry, but most acknowledged him with a word or a nod; Anguy even wiggled his eyebrows at him suggestively when he saw them. Gendry wouldn't deign to answer the gesture. He was used to it, used to their teasing. _Wet nurse,_ the men called him when they'd come by the inn to mend rusted huerback and straighten dinted plate. _Craven._ He wouldn't let their folly anger him, the children needed protecting, his was an honourable charge, worthy of a knight. _Maid._ He had no excuse for that one, plainly it was true. Only now it seemed Anguy taunted him about the opposite sort of assumption. _We're not all made of the same stuff, Archer._ He wanted to believe that, so he busied himself with gathering what remained of camp and didn't look at his commander again, lest he lust for her. Soon enough they were ahorse, Lyla's skinny arms were closed tight about his waist, and Acorn Hall awaited them, there where Willow and the orphans would have a curtain wall and a small garrison, and no more need of a blacksmith knight. 

* * *

A groom took Arya's mare as soon as they crossed the gate. She was requested in the lady's chambers, the lad said, and like that she was gone. Harwin trotted up to Gendry's side at once, unwilling to allow him to head their small column even if it were just to cross the ward to the stables. From there they went to wash the grime off of them, so they could be admitted into the keep's main hall, where the evening meal was being served to a crowded rowdy room. The Acorn Hall folk and the members of the brotherhood mingled freely, to a point Gendry really wasn’t sure which was which. Maybe all were a bit of both. 

After almost a fortnight spent on the road, coming and going from the inn to Acorn Hall and back again, benches and walls and hearth were as welcome a change as the hot barley stew greasy with mutton and onions. He was one of the Wolf's men, this was bound to be one of the last chances he had to eat with a roof above his head, and Gendry savored it. 

Nothing he enjoyed was ever truly meant for him, he thought when a page in yellow livery came for him mid meal. "Are you Ser Gendry?" the boy asked meekly. "Would you come with me, ser? The Lady Carellen wants audience with you. She is attending the Lady Wolf in her chambers now. Follow me, if you please. I'll take you there, ser." He was awfully polite, and Gendry found he did not like it one bit. _It's not him that unnerves me._ It didn't help that this boy had ashen hair falling almost to his shoulders. They stopped before a heavy oaken door on the second landing, which opened no sooner than he knocked. 

Thoros was behind it, smiling his tired smile as he let them into the room, a lord’s solar adjoining a bedchamber. It was a large room, with a window facing east, a large hearth with a booming fire within, and a hardwood table scattered with papers and parchments. Wax candles gave the place a faint warm scent, thick carpets blanketed the floor, and cushioned chairs were placed by the fire, but everyone in the room was standing. They were five therein: the priest, Arya, Lady Carellen, Willow and the Archer. The company didn’t bode well for Gendry.

“Thank you Elmo,” Carellen Smallwood said with her soft gentle voice. The page bowed, but she made him rise and mussed the boy’s pretty hair. “Now go and ask Goodwife Jenna to open the westermost room on the ground level on the morrow, if you please, then you’re dismissed for the evening. But tell her it’s quite urgent, will you? The fresh linen won’t bother her, but maybe the chimney will need cleaning, and that can’t go smoothly.” 

Elmo smiled brightly at Lady Carellen. “At once, my lady,” the boy said and left.

“Thoros, will you accompany our new Captain of the Guard to the barracks?” she asked then. The priest assented, and turned to Anguy to lead him out. That was when Gendry noticed the archer had a grin ear to ear on his freckled face. 

He winked as he made his exit. "I wonder what they'll want from you, Bull," he joke-whispered for everyone’s ears before leaving. 

“There is much and more to settle, and I thought you would prove useful, Ser Gendry.” Was what Lady Carellen said to him. She sat on a chair by the fire and smoothed her skirts, and nodded for the others to sit as well. He did that then, same as Willow, but Arya held her stand and waited for them to take their places. _She’s washed and changed too, and more beautiful than ever._ Instead of the jerkin and leggings of their journey she wore a blue tunic fasted on her waist with a leather belt, from where hung her sword and dirk, as always adorning the wrong side. He’d never seen the like of his bull’s helm since Dunsen left Harrenhal with the Mountain’s men, but Arya Stark had to find a way to have her Needle back, and he’d heard from her mouth the how of it. The sword was a tiny thing that reached but past her knees, scarce longer than her tunic. Her legs were covered with warm woolen hose, faded brown in color, and her feet protected by leather shoes rather than high riding boots. Arya took a wooden chair for herself instead of a cushioned one, sat by the table and set to sharpen a quill. Gendry shook his head to stop from staring. 

There was much and more to settle indeed, rooms and beds and posts. Lady Carellen wanted Willow and Gendry together to piece out places and chores best suited to each of the orphans, big ones and small ones alike “Elmo’s just turned ten,” she said “he has served as my cupbearer since he was seven. He came with me from Oldtown, there were so many children there… I’m happy to find service for yours all.” Gendry wanted to say the orphans weren’t _his_ at all, but he had more to say about their skills and needs than their ownership. It wasn’t a difficult task. Surprisingly, he and Willow agreed about most things. Wat was to join the keep’s guard, it was a way to make him not even think to journey north; Tansy was to take charge of the buterry, and Jon Penny could certainly find a place in the kitchen; Pate and Ben could try and open the smithy, they had been by Gendry’s side this past few years; Will and Sasha would tend to the horses and sheep; Lyla and Bethany were chosen to help Goodwife Jenna in her chores about the keep, and maybe for training to be maidenservents if they took to it; Little Jon and Owen and Bryan could go to the scullery; only Watty and Lilly still needed a nursery, and Daisy too, of course.

“Where is Daisy now?” Gendry wanted to know. She was never not clinging to Willow’s skirts.

“I mean to see to that now,” said Willow. “I left her with Tansy in the main hall, but she was fussy already. The wretched girl will be too worried about Ben to seek out a quiet corner to put the baby to sleep. I’ll do it, like most every night.” Daisy was a tiny little thing, and scared easily, but Willow was all the solace she ever needed.

“You should've left her with Jon Penny, and you know it.”

“He was gone to help Watty to the privy, Gendry. Ben and Wat were still in the tub when I was summoned. It was Tansy or Pate, and Pate dropped Daisy the last time.”

It always escalated fast between them, but Lady Carellen wouldn’t allow it. “Then let us see to the baby, shall we?” she said amiably, and got up from her seat. The woman wrapped her arm around Willow’s as if she too were some highborn lady, and they left the solar with long elegant strides.

Gendry watched them leave, and felt relief flood him for a moment. A brief moment, for Arya suddenly moved from behind the table to cross the solar towards him. They were alone in the room, too. Gendry took a deep breath to steady himself, but she passed him right through without a word. She’d been strangely silent the whole time, but even taken as he was with the task at hand, he was constantly aware of her presence, and stole glances at her from time to time to find her engrossed with putting words to paper. The noise of the door closing had him turning around to see her finally gone, but instead he found her looking at him with her back to the wood. It was closed and barred now. _These are Arya’s rooms,_ he remembered the page Elmo said as much. Across the solar an arched entryway gave way to the bedchamber, and there the bed where she’d spend the night. _You want to fuck?_

“M’lady-”

“Don’t you start.” She cut him. 

“Don’t start what?”

She only arched her brows, and walked up to him again. He stared, and waited. Then she kissed him, as easy as the whores kissed their patrons at the Peach. Gendry froze at once, then heat travelled from his lips all the way to his toes and he could move again, albeit his movements weren't really his own. He kissed her back, tentatively sucked on her lips and stuck his tongue inside her mouth. She let him kiss her, chuckling softly when he left her mouth to claim her jaw. _What is this that I’m doing?_ It had become hard to think. The taste of Arya was intoxicating. He parted from her the slightest distance, putting between them enough space. _I should say something, protest, or announce I’m leaving_ , but words refused to come. He held her face with both his hands instead, his eyes firm on hers, and she took the opportunity to bring her own hands to rest on his chest. Shivers ran down his spine. She explored the expanse of his shoulders, his back, his abdomen. She played with the hem of his tunic and dipped one hand under his breeches. A low moan escaped him when her cold callused fingers wrapped around his cock. _This is too much_. She was whispering things, filthy things about how big and strong he was and how much she wanted him inside her, but he couldn't make sense of the words, he couldn't make sense of the world, the only thing he felt at all were her cold fingers surely grasping his cock and her hot breath against his ear, and then she licked and bit him and he shuddered, completely lost to her. He moaned and groaned again as she sucked his earlobe inside her mouth. 

Arya took a step back and then another, never releasing him, never wavering. He followed like a madman, in awe, unable to control a single muscle in his body. It became clear why she was walking then, when she bumped with her back against the hardwood table, the table on which she had just been writing important things to important people, and she used her arm to lever herself up on it. He found himself standing between her knees, their lips still attached. She encircled his middle with her strong legs, her heels digging into his ass. _This is too much_. It was too much and too little, too, Gendry was pressing her tight against his chest, holding her waist with one hand, weaving his fingers through her hair with another. _It’s so short, I have nothing to hold on to_ , but she moaned when he tried, and the sound raised goosebumps all over his skin. She let her head fall back, baring her neck to him. Gendry sucked on the soft skin there, trying to consume her, to inhale some of Arya Stark as if she were the very air. She moaned again, louder, her throat vibrating and her grasp on his cock tightening. Her other hand, the one that hadn't been making him her thrall, was busy with the hem of her tunic and smallclothes, he realized as she wriggled back and forth to touch the tip of his cock with her exposed sex. His vision went white when wet skin and prickly hair rubbed against him, his cock so hard he thought it would burst. "Arya, Arya, Arya..." he heard himself saying, sighing, hoping without hope for a response. Then his own name came from her lips, a blow to knock all air out of his lungs, a wave of heat crashing head to toes. She guided him inside of her and he felt all at the same time, his stomach tightening, his fingers twisting and tingling, the blood coursing through his veins so hard, so fast he could hear nothing else. The world went white – for a second, or maybe a whole minute, he could not have known. 

Slowly, so slowly, he wasn't floating anymore, he was back inside his body, back between Arya's legs, his entire body throbbing. He had spent himself immediately upon entering her, he recognized. His forehead rested against hers as he opened his eyes cautiously, to find her with her own eyes closed, lips red curved in a small smile. Gendry felt sated, but terribly ashamed. He hadn’t had the resolve to resist her, and now his seed was inside her cunt, and so was him still, limp and bloodless and panting. 

"Arya, I –" 

"Shush, don't talk now." Their breaths mingled. She put her hand over his mouth to silence him, her fingers felt hot this time, the softest thing that had ever touched his lips. He kissed them, chastely first, and then hungrily when she didn't remove them from his reach. He sucked on them, closed his eyes again, hardening once more inside her. She pulled her hand down, smeared his spit against his chin and his jaw and his neck then grabbed on the collar of his tunic. Together, they pulled up his tunic and undertunic, unlaced his boots, and took down his breeches. She touched his shoulders and arms unhurried, grazed his skin with her nails, played with the coarse hair that grew on his chest. When he was naked as his nameday she took her own garments off and stood in front of him. He was helpless before Arya Stark, always had been. _She is beautiful beyond words,_ he thought. _How could I ever refuse her?_ He drank her in with his eyes, but couldn't move or say anything for fear she would dissolve into mist and he would wake up with thick seed sticking to his clothes and men snoring to either side of him.

"What," she broke the spell with a word and a step forward, and he could hear mirth in her voice. "You afraid I'm gonna disappear?" 

"How did you know?" His own voice was hoarse, like he hadn't used it so long he had forgotten how. 

"A guess." She took his hand and placed it on her breast. "Here, I'm real". 

_Your heart is beating too fast too_ , and he was shaking all the more for it. "I know." 

She closed the distance between them, both her hands still holding his, and kissed him on the lips. 

"Come to bed?"

"Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a list of the orphans and their ages:  
> 1\. Tansy 13  
> 2\. Ben 13  
> 3\. Pate 12  
> 4\. Wat 12  
> 5\. Jon Penny 10  
> 6\. Will 8  
> 7\. Sasha 8  
> 8\. Little Jon 8  
> 9\. Owen 7  
> 10\. Bethany 7  
> 11\. Lyla 6  
> 12\. Bryan 6  
> 13\. Watty 5  
> 14\. Lilly 5  
> 15\. Daisy 2
> 
> Soooo how do we feel about it? I’m thinking an interlude with Arya’s POV would maybe be welcome, but let me know what you think. Could this story benefit from it, or is it more interesting if it’s one-sided? Are we curious to know what the Ghost of High Heart told Arya?
> 
> Also, credit where it's due: the line about being a monster and not a hero is from the Mercy chapter. Arya mouths the words together with the dwarf that plays Tyrion's role on The Bloody Hand before she starts her interaction with Raff the Sweetling, which leads to you know what...


	4. disobedience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, an update! I upped the chapter count to six, but it may become even longer, or maybe I'll will wrap up this one and turn it into a series. I don't know.  
> Also, I've written a few ficlets set in this same universe, but post-canon, after the war for the dawn, if you're interested in such things :)

It never left his thoughts, not for a second. Gendry went about his day in a state of stupor, constantly aware of the night before. Arya's face was etched on his eyelids, he had only to blink to see her there, looking down at him, cheeks pink, eyes dark, lips swollen. The taste of her skin stuck to his tongue, and didn't leave even after he broke his fast on black bread and cheese, not even when he had a platter of boiled sausage and greens at midday, nor could the bowl of barley and mutton stew at supper wash it away. _It’s more than a bastard blacksmith should ever taste._

No one had declared it a feast, but with the brotherhood leaving on morrow Acorn Hall's main hall roared boisterous by the time supper was served. Gendry's brothers had hustled about the whole day, engaged with packing up tents and bedrolls, putting together provisions, taking care of what nourishment they'd have, working diligently in preparation for the bleak journey ahead. _North we march._ Gendry himself spent the time with the children, helping them settle. Ben and Pate most of all, far too long the smithy had been closed and it showed, but the others too. He spied Arya in the inner ward when he led Sasha and Will to the stables, but what did he have to say to her? She was engrossed in conversation with Lew and Jack, talking horseflesh. He found her again when he took Wat to Anguy for the drills. The boy had been exulting with pride, moreso when the captain of the guard said he would be ready to swap quarrels for arrows in no time at all. Arya winked at Gendry and mocked boy and Archer both in their presumptuousness. Presumptuous they were, to the last strand of the ginger hair they shared, but they had good aim too, and the Wolf praised it. 

He didn't see Arya again after that. She didn't sup in the main hall that evening, and in her absence Gendry found himself wondering if he would ever be welcomed in her bed again. _Or near her at all._ Had he done poorly? He didn’t know what he was doing most of the time, but at night that had seemed to amuse rather than annoy her. Come morning, when light streaming from the windows awoke him, Gendry found Arya alert, watching him in his sleep. She smiled. “I must get dressed,” was all she had said as she got up and crossed the room, naked, to stake the fire and feed another log to the hearth. Then she pulled a fresh shift above her head, then a gray tunic she tied with a belt about the waist, and then she sat on the chair by the table, to don stockings and worn leather shoes. He’d watched her, mesmerized, as she covered the expanse of her legs with the woolen fabric and the silky skin he had touched so thoroughly disappeared behind the dark material. Last she covered herself with the silver fur cloak and walked towards the door, leaving him there alone with only a look over her shoulder.

Was it a habit of the she-wolf, to swallow men whole at night? He looked about him, to the men eating and drinking in the hall, and shuddered. _Be glad_ , he told himself. _Don’t dwell on it._ But he had too. He searched among his brothers, Wolf’s men all of them, and wondered which Arya had taken to her bed before. _You want to fuck?_ He saw her leaning against the tub, there in the dusty garrets room she’d taken for herself in the inn. Was it as simple as that? That night fate got in their way and he’d thanked the gods for it. _Fate, and the honorable Edric Dayne._ Last night she'd been set on the blacksmith knight again, and wouldn’t give him a moment to protest, nor would she give fate a chance to act. It sure should, with him being the undeserving bastard that he was, but Arya’s resolve proved stronger than fate. 

She had kissed his mouth and made him feel the only man in the world there on the table, and then on the bed. Her teats pressed into him, her skin clung to his skin… Remembering it was reliving it. Maddening, it was, the way she raised herself to settle hands on his chest and used the leverage to roll her hips. She would suck on his neck and bite on his shoulder and lick on his ear, and when he could he took the chance to wander his hands over her back, grab her ass and thrust up into her. He lost all restraint, but soon she'd raise again to still him. That was great too. To watch her, a goddess astride him, teats bouncing, breath hitching, face flushing, those large eyes rolling to look at the ceiling above seeing nothing. It was like that she brought a hand to where they joined and touched herself there with the tips of her fingers until she screamed and crashed down onto his chest and he sputtered inside her, as if on cue. 

The memory made his breeches strain on his manhood, even if it turned bitter when he pictured someone blond and lordly in his place. _I'll have a serving wench take care of that. Or better a whore. I’ll only have whores from now on._ Gendry thought he should’ve started long ago, too.

"Ser Gendry?" It was Elmo to shake him from his brooding. "The Lady Wolf asks if you will attend her. Should I show you to her chambers?"

Thankfully, today he was done with supper before the page arrived. 

"No need. I know the way." 

He found the door ajar, and entered without announcement. She had called for him, after all. The rushes on the floor drank his footsteps, but Arya lifted her eyes to him the instant he crossed the threshold of her apartments all the same. 

"You came." 

_Naturally. What an absurd thing to say._ "You're my commander." 

She closed her eyes and bobbed her head. Released from her piercing gaze, Gendry closed the door to walk a few steps into the room.

“I was clear with Elmo to approach you with an invite, not a summon.” She kept her eyes closed, that disconcerted him.

“Same difference,” he shrugged. “Why does Elmo call you Lady Wolf?”

She laughed at that and opened her eyes to look at him funny before answering.

“Why, a courtesy. He is gentleborn and young, being trained for knighthood. You think he’d forgo his manners when talking about a highborn maiden of my estature?” 

Her question was laced with so much irony he’d notice it even if she hadn’t called herself a maiden, but that was not what he meant.

“Why does he not call you Lady Stark?” _Lady Wolf_ sounded almost like a joke _._

“He knows me only as the Wolf.” Gendry hadn't thought of that. _She must know me for a fool._ As if to prove his reasoning, she chuckled. “How lucky I am you don’t have many friends to brag to, and spill my name over ale." It was a jape, he knew, but still it made him wary.

"Who here knows who you are?” Many friends, few friends or no friends, Gendry didn't mean to let them learn of her identity, no more than he had when they'd been kids. 

“The brotherhood. Those who knew Arya Stark as such when she was their captive," she answered. "Even then to most I was just a highborn hostage meant for ransoming. They never knew me as Robb’s heir, and today they know me only as the Wolf. It’s for the best. I told Carellen to earn her trust, but no one else. Do your children know?”

“The children...? I… I think not. I don’t think I ever said your name to them, nor did Willow. Hey! You told _Willow_ of who you were, when we first came to Acorn Hall!”

“I did. You trust her, so I decided I could too.”

“I don’t trust Willow!” 

“But you do. Of course you do. You love her.”

“I _what?_ What do yo-”

“Willow, and her sister, and some of the orphans too. You love that girl as much as she were your own blood, Gendry. I tell it as I see it, is all.” 

Did she see it true? Gendry didn’t have an answer for her. What did he know of love, anyway? Arya was still speaking, but he had lost some of her words. “You shouldn’t be so hard on Willow, you know,” she was saying. “No wonder she never told you of the Archer.” 

_Nothing. I know nothing of love._ “And why is that? It’s naught to me if they are bedding.” He heard the fury in his voice, but chose to ignore it. 

Arya surely found this whole conversation ludicrous. “That is _just_ not true.” She announced. “You’re so damn bullheaded-”

“That I am. And I don’t love no one. If I love ‘em, then why are I leaving?”

“You tell me,” she shot. 

“My sword is yours to command,” he gave back.

“Then you stay here and wield it to guard them," she used her calm commanding speech to say that, before an impish grin twisted her lips. "We can use tonight for farewell.” 

She batted her eyelashes and tried to kiss him, but Gendry seized her by the shoulders and pushed her away. Arya’s words had bellowed at the furnace of his fury. “I don’t mean to say no farewell.” He knew he was being gruff, but there was no helping it. The eyes before him turned to steel. Arya jerked away from his grasp. 

“Then leave.” Her voice was unaffected, but she moved fast enough that he had to practically prance to get a hold of her again. Her back was to him, so when he reached to circle her arm with his hand it was the right arm he caught. That proved a grave mistake; quick as a cat she had turned again and a dirk was to his throat. “I told you to leave,” she repeated, impassive.

“Is not that! Arya, I- _Arya…_ ” It was the first time he voiced her name since midst their tryst the night before. He savoured it, the way it rolled on his tongue. “I am going north. This _can't_ be farewell,” he said slowly. She sheathed her steel, at least. 

“The more reason for you to go. I will see you on the morrow.”

It was a simple order, truly, but for some unknown reason he wouldn’t let go of her arm. _I said I was hers to command._ He could almost feel her pulse her under his palm. Or was it his own? _Unhand her._ He couldn’t move. Gendry never saw when she stuck a foot between his legs and tripped him, but he yanked her down with him and they rolled across the carpeted floor. She was very nimble, but he was stronger, it was easy to catch both her wrists in one hand and overpower her. _Or else she allowed it._ He looked into Arya’s eyes a moment, brief as it was, and seared a kiss upon her lips. 

* * *

Arya was playing with the hair on his chest. It was a thing she liked to do, she'd done the same the night before. It tickled, and not in a pleasant way. He swatted her hand away, aiming for playful, but when she raised her eyes to him her brows were furrowed. 

"You want me to stop, you can say it with words," she chastised, rubbing at her hand. "You're stronger than even you know."

He scrambled for an apology but landed on teasing instead. "You used to be faster," he smirked.

"Hard to do just now." Her voice still held an annoyed edge, but the angry brows melted into that impish smile of hers. He understood. Gendry felt sated and sluggish, and she was the one who'd done most of the _moving._ If ever there was a time for her to be drowsy, now was it; even Arya Stark couldn't be so quick at all times.

“Come to think of it, was easy pinning you down earlier too..." It was not in him to let that slide. "How is it is easier to catch you now than when you were a tiny little girl?”

“You'd never catch me if I didn't want you to.”

"What about your hand? You saying I wore you out, m'lady?" 

She scoffed. "That's stupid. Don't be full of yourself."

After he dared kiss her, they had hastily disrobed and she'd pushed him to the bed onto his back. She straddled him, just like yesterday, then sunk into his manhood to ride him to his very last breath. Each time she had him was better, though Gendry couldn’t understand how that was even possible. He wasn't about to fall out of the Wolf's grace for being antagonistic, _that would be stupid._

“I’m not,” he confessed. “I’m only mocking.”

Arya put an aggravated hand on her chest. _"I’m not. Mocking you. I’d never!"_ she made her voice deeper to mimic his and repeated the clumsy words he’d said when he pledged to be her man. 

“I wasn’t mocking you _then.”_

“I know. I do, worry not _Ser_ Gendry. I like to see you squirm.”

He huffed. “If it please m’lady, by all means do go on.”

Arya kissed his lips briefly and settled her hand on his chest again, laying it still atop his heart this time. She studied him with those deep dark eyes of hers for a while, chewing on her lips. It made him think back on the day he came to Acorn Hall to find Arya Stark alive and breathing and beautiful, and the looks she shot him over the table while they shared their awkward meal. _Are you trying to make me squirm with your gaze only?,_ he wondered. That couldn’t work, he’d never squirm, only rejoice to drown in her.

“It pleases me,” Arya said with finality. “You please me well enough,” she teased. 

“Oh, that’s fine to learn,” he tried to sound smug, though in truth he felt enormously relieved, and a silly green boy before her. "You… You've been with other men, before, to know it. Aye?"

Was it pity he saw in her features for a fleeting moment? "Yes, I've bedded men before you, Gendry." Her voice was soft, and she was still looking into his eyes. If she was offended, it didn’t show. 

"The Lord of Starfall?" 

Unbidden, the question tumbled from his mouth, and he rued it immediately. Arya burst into laughter, so much so that there were tears in her eyes when she spoke again. 

"Ned is a dear friend," she said when she caught her breath. "He has no lust for me." _That's not an answer,_ he thought, though he decided he prefered not to press and know for certain. She went on regardless. "We never fucked," came between the chuckles to make Gendry sag against the pillows while Arya regained her composure. "What he did was propose to take me for his lady wife," she finished.

It was a knife to the gut, the sharpest yet. Arya laughing again despite his agony was salt in the wound. 

"Ned has known women, Gendry, he's just much too honourable to brag." Maybe she could see the hurt in his eyes, for she touched the crease between his brows with gentle fingers. "Would you want Willow in your bed?" she asked, more serious now, and she didn't even wait for his revulsed retort. "It is not what he wanted from me. He thought _I_ 'd want his castle and claim, so he offered. He believed it the right thing to do. I didn't want that… I don't need any of it. He was relieved, I promise you." 

_That_ was hard to believe, that any man alive would be happy to be spurned by Arya Stark. She was stunning, her eyes were sharp and lively, her mouth eager and warm, her hands cold and callused, her legs long and strong, her skin supple and scarred, her nipples round and dark. Gendry took in her form, bare against the sheets and unashamed, and a savage hunger seized him. He claimed her mouth with his, and then her neck, and then her teat; he suckled on one and kneaded the other, bit the nipple and blew his breath on the wet skin, and dragged his hand down her body to grab on her mount, but when touched her there her sharp intake of breath made him balk. _What did I do?_ He extricated himself from her breasts and looked into her glazed gray eyes with the question on his own. 

"Go on," she urged. _I deserve none of this,_ he knew and he kissed her lips again, parted and panting as they were. He kissed her greedly, more teeth than tongue, and dug his fingers in her hips, forcing them down as she tried to arch off the mattress. She was hot and glistening between her legs, he never knew how it happened but he was deep sheathed within her warmth already, and thrusting, and thrusting. _"Gendry!”_ his name was a high-pitched shriek in her throat, inflaming him on. _"Don’t stop!”_ she pleaded, as if he could even. He put all his strength behind his movements, Arya held on to him: her ankles crossed behind his ass, her hands wrapped around his neck. He was lost to her, completely lost in her. It was all he could do to continue sinking into her cunt, urged on by the music of their slapping skin and by the sharp smell of sex, chasing after something he couldn't name. He saw her bite her lip so hard the pink turned white around her teeth, for a moment he worried she'd draw blood, only then he felt the grip of her cunt on his cock tighten, and there was no more room for worry. A long low groan made itself heard through her sealed mouth and the sound made him fuck her all the harder. She was grunting then, howling, and so was him, the sound like a wild animal wounded. It was the sweetest thing. She dug her nails deep into his flesh, arched into him, her hard nipples grazed on his chest, and she screamed. _"Fuck me!"_ she cried out, but Gendry had no words to answer her with, it was all he could do to watch as Arya became still and taut beneath him. He held steady for a moment, took the deepest breath with his eyes closed, marvelled at the feel of her walls fluttering around his cock. _Nothing has ever felt so overwhelming._ He relished in the burn of the injuries she’d inflicted on the back of his neck, and moved in a trance, unable to justify his actions, unwrapping her arms from him when they turned feeble. He took caught both her wrists in one hand to lock them above her head, bent over her and nuzzled the inside of her palm, _the left one, the one she wields her sword with,_ then ghosted the faintest touch of his lips all the way down her arm to the softest skin where fine dark hair prickled at his nose. She shivered and squirmed and made him mad with want. He pounded into her with abandon, reached deeper, the feel of her hitting the very tip of him making Gendry move faster than he thought himself capable. It came creeping from his toes up, sudden, unbidden, that scorching throbbing heat he'd been chasing without knowing. He jerked inside Arya and filled her with his seed yet again and collapsed on top of her, breathless and spent.

He mustered what little strength he still had to roll to her side, and watched her. She was all flushed red and shiny with sweat, her chest heaving as hard as his own. Arya turned her neck to look at him, tried to say something and failed, and just kept looking at him with bottomless dark eyes. Her eyes sparkled, dazed like he'd never seen them. The mattress they lay on had become a mess, and completely drenched. _Her juices._ He vaguely remembered when heat had pooled around them, before he took her hands to hold above her head. Languid bliss guided his limbs now, to embrace Arya Stark of Winterfell, to feel her body melt into him. Together, ponderously, they scooted away from the wet patch to fall in the deepest state of slumber. 

Dawn took them unawares. They were abed, laying facing one another, kissing and touching softly, as they had been for most of the night. Happiness governed Gendry’s movements when the first light of day came through the shutters to make Arya’s eyes shine silver. 

“I want you so. You don’t know, you can’t know," he said into her hair. Want stood for lack of a better word: _need_ would be truer, maybe _love_ even more so. _I don’t love no one,_ he’d said just hours ago. It should be true. How could Gendry love a princess, a daughter of Winterfell, of noble blood and gentle birth? He should save his want for whores. He had vowed to do just that last night, before the page came for him to say Arya had called. He was lost to her.

“I want you too, stupid.” 

There was that smile again. He couldn’t resist to kiss the curve of her lips, and then suck them inside his mouth. He released the upper lip first, held the bottom one between his teeth, and kept his eyes open, trained into hers. Wasn’t easy, but it was worth seeing the spark his bite elicited. Arya moaned low. 

"The day must start." She whispered when he freed her mouth. "We ride out today, before the sun begins to dip."

“North,” he said.

“North,” she repeated. “Home, I guess.”

He held her tightly in his arms. _Home._ He had already left behind the only home he knew, the cot in the forge at the inn. It was still autumn when he settled there. 

“How are you going to know the way, m’lady? Winter stripped the moss off the trees.”

Arya punched him, an unseen blow that made him breathless.

They dressed quickly, stealing glances at the tokens they'd left one another; Arya had purple bruises on her neck and teats and hips, he had bite marks on his shoulder and claw marks over his back. The roughspun tunic he donned today scratched at them, a sweet discomfort he longed to keep alive.

“The wolf will show us the way.” Was the last thing she said before they left the room. Gendry shivered. _Mystery and mischief, indeed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed. As always, I'm ever interested in knowing what you think.  
> Not much has happened plot-wise here, but in the next chapter: they leave Acorn Hall, farewells do happen, the Wolf meets her wolf, and hopefully an Arya POV will be posted along our boy Gendry's account of what's going on. All is in the works.


	5. the she-wolf's interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there dearest readers. It has been a long time, has it not?  
> Writting an Arya POV really messed with my head, and life's been crazy up side down (I'm a grad student and I have a part time job and a four year old son, so yeah, quarentine has not made it any easier to find the time to write).  
> When I was trying to capture Arya's voice for this fic, I wrote this post-canon one shot [Waning and Waxing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26358808) that I'm really happy about.  
> I would love love love honest feedback on this chapter. I always feel my writting is a little rushed, like I needed more words to express what I want with the calm I intended. I don't know if that makes sense. Oh well, I'm rambling now. I hope you enjoy our Arya POV.

It was snowing again, a light flurry that was starting to pile fluffy on the ground but melted against her cheeks. Flanked by Harwin and Gendry, Arya kept one hand on Needle and crossed the gates. It proved harder than she thought it would, this going, leaving behind the warm hall that had welcomed her and the friends she’d made there. From somewhere deep within the memory of leaving Winterfell came to life, and she brushed the ball of her thumb across her sword's smooth pommel. _I am going back,_ she reminded herself again. _I am going north,_ and to the north laid home. All the same, Arya would miss Carellen Smallwood, who somehow reminded her of Sansa but had two feet on the ground. 

They were sixty strong going north, and on that first day their going was easy. The Wolf’s men left Acorn Hall before midday, like she wanted; they travelled mounted and had no carts nor wagons to slow them down, and thirty spare horses rode riderless among them. Those had come under the guise of Lord Vance's wedding gift to his betrothed. It seemed simple enough to make good time... but Arya wasn’t anxious to leave the riverlands. The riverlands were safe: so long as she was below the Neck, she was among friends who’d sworn oaths to her, but she dared not hope what they’d find in the bogland. _If oaths won’t protect us, the wolves will._ Still, it was good measure to divide in three parties, a score each. Harwin led one group, Thoros the other, Jack-be-Lucky the third. Arya grimaced at the thought of Ned Dayne, who should have the command instead of Jack. 

_He's well cared for,_ she reminded herself. _He'll find us soon enough, and we'll fight side by side._ The image of him bloody and shaking still haunted her, though. _His eyes_ , she kept seeing his big and dark and guileless eyes turned cloudy and dazed, on the brink of gone, too gone to be earnest and kind like they should. He'd lost enough blood to start mumbling nonsensically, and Arya feared another friend would leave her. _And all of it, what for!? Stupid, stupid, stupid lordly honor! If Ned had a hair more wit he’d be in one piece, and here._ Punching Anguy for fooling around with a girl willing, and he couldn't see it! 

Back on their way to the inn, Arya would often glance back at the column’s rear and find Willow and the Archer riding together, smiling at one another or laughing at Gendry’s expense. It had taken one look only to notice how enamoured they were. When they made camp, she'd spied Willow scooting away into the Archer's arms; shrouded by night, they’d huddle under the same furs and hold each other with the hesitant tenderness common to new lovers. How unreasonable, to be in love at such times as these. _This Willow is not half as smart as she believes_. It was good the Archer had stayed behind at Acorn Hall, he’d make for miserable company were he journeying north too. Arya even had Carellen assign private rooms to him, as befit a captain of guards. She guessed him and Willow could be together without issue now, no sneaking in and out of the barracks, no comings and goings at the service of the brotherhood, and no surly blacksmith hovering over them. _Not that Gendry would have known, if it weren't for Ned_. He was oblivious to the affair, and simply because he regarded Willow as the little girl she had been once, his little sister _._

Arya's heart twisted in her chest. 

No matter what the Ghost had dreamed, no matter what Thoros saw in his flames, no matter what her men believed... Arya rested her hand on Needle’s pommel at her hip. She knew the reason that drew her north, the only reason she cared about anyway. She would find her brother. She would find Jon.

 _I finally can, then I will._ It should be an easy leap, but Arya felt equal parts purpose and dread in finally having within her reach Winterfell and Jon Snow and Nymeria and all she hungered for. She was in Westeros again and stronger than she’d ever been, she had a thousand rivermen sworn to her and a hundred wolves waiting her, she had only to say the word and her soldiers would charge, she had only to close her eyes and her pack would follow. Still she feared, maybe more than she ever had, though her men would never know. She was the brotherhood’s commander, and a woman grown, she would not let them see her fear. 

_I'm not so little anymore, but I’m still your sister. You will see that I still am,_ she said to Jon Snow in thought _._ He would see right through her, like he always had. _You have to know me. You have to know me for who I’ve become._

Sometimes she herself did not.

 _I'm Arya, of House Stark. I’m the Wolf._ She was. She knew of _who_ she was, truly, the difficulty was the _how_. Arya knew only how to perform. Nan was diligent and minded her place, Cat of the Canals was all cheeky attitude. Blind Beth was simple and dour, Mercy giggly and pretty and aloof, and Lyra lively and witty and charming, a maiden recently flowered… _I could never be no one, so I was each of them in turn._ As a girl, she’d been the most like Cat, though Arya Underfoot was never so foul-mouthed as Cat of the Canals. _Septa Mordane wouldn’t have it._ Only she’d become a woman since then. So many faces she’d put on… and many masks she wore still. _I know only how to perform._ Save with Gendry. The smith was fiercely loyal, and the only true friend she had now. _And quite the bedmate, too._

When she called a halt later that day it was into his arms she retreated, much to Harwin’s indignation. A look was all it took to keep him silent, though, he knew better than to be defiant.

The men settled camp, hobbled the horses and built a fire, Jack passed around a skin of ale and Tom sang a few songs, and soon most were snoring. Not Arya. She’d been laying on the furs without closing her eyes for what felt like hours when Gendry stirred at her side.

"What keeps you from sleep?"

He held her with his strong warm arms and gathered her into his chest, but tonight this made her feel no more at ease. 

"Death awaits us in Winterfell," she whispered. 

"What?" His voice was raspy and slow, like it ought to be at such hour. 

"That's what the Ghost said." 

"The… ghost?" Gendry chuckled "you're not making sense, m'lady." 

He was teasing her. That probed a slight smile to form on her lips. There was no stiff deference in the way he said the title now, and for that reason she let it slide. That, and also she was concerned about other things, serious things. 

"The Ghost of High Heart. That old dwarf woman we called on on our way from the inn," Arya said into the night. 

"Is that what she said? I always wondered." 

Arya had written down the dreams once she came to Acorn Hall so not to forget them, though that had proved just a waste of ink and parchment. She kept it rolled tight with her other treasures, but she did not need open it to remember the words. _“I dreamt of a black castle turned battlegrounds, and a man burning a lover he had no right to, but that was long ago. The man looked like you, aye, I see it now. I dreamt the same man again, trying to heal from the deepest wounds, sending his men off to carve faces into trees. I dreamt two lords with amethyst eyes fighting for a pale sword neither will wield. One was true but dark and the other fair but false, and in the end the true morning star fell upon them to collect the spoils. I dreamt a wolfling on a ship, fierce and teary eyed. And I dreamt of you, she-wolf. Bloody wolf. You summon death at will, but now death awaits you wolves up north, grey girl. You ought to go, aye, or I fear the sun may not rise again."_ Those were the crone's words. Either written or echoing in her head, they were ominous.

She shuddered, and turned in Gendry’s embrace to look at him, then buried her face into his chest, breathing in his scent of sweat and metal. Gendry was only half alert, same as he was half hard. It was no use saying anything of importance now. 

"Rest," she whispered to him, trying to be soft. "It matters not." 

"It does," he said stubbornly. "Tell me what you're thinking." He refused her softness, as if he knew she didn't really mean it. Arya felt out of sorts with this uncanny talent he seemed to have to read her. 

"She said _death awaits you wolves up north, grey girl._ " She shuddered again, remembering.

Gendry screwed up his handsome face. “What does she know of what awaits you, Arya?” he tried to comfort her. 

“She knows. She dreams the future there sleeping among them weirwoods. They’re just stumps, but powerful… the oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, and the stump lives in them both. She is old as time, that crone, and she knows things.”

“What else she said?” Gendry wanted to know. He was awake now, his eyes vivid and worried. Arya felt guilty some, but she supposed she could share the visions the Ghost had granted her with him.

“She dreamed of my brother, I think. A man who looks like me, she said, and he was wounded in her dreams. She dreamed of Dawn, the ancient sword of house Dayne. She said the true morning star will have it, I think that’s Ned. And she said death awaits us to the north, but I must go, or the sun won’t rise again.”

He held her even tighter, but she couldn’t care to find it suffocating. Why would she need air when she could breathe him?

“You can’t die,” he said in a strangled voice, almost without sound. 

“I _can_ ,” she asserted, words muffled against him, and she felt him tremble, “but I won’t.” 

* * *

They mounted at first light. _Today Carellen is to be wed,_ Arya remembered, _and to a man she’s never met, with ten years on her_. But Arya couldn’t find it in her to pity her friend, not when Carellen had been resolute on being happy about the marriage. A motherhouse had to be an even worse place than the temple of the Many-Faced God, surely. _Septas never have kindly smiles, and the things they teach you are useless_. Carellen was smart enough to know what fate best suited her. “I need the forces of Wayfarer’s Rest behind me to secure my oaken keep, and Lord Karyl needs my sheep to feed his forces. We shall get along,” she’d said to Arya, so very practical. “He has three young daughters, and I am fond of children,” she’d beamed.

When Thoros told Arya he’d seen the Willow and her warrior smith in his flames, it all fell into place. Carellen had left her home only a girl and was now determined to make it hers, and how better to start than with more new faces about? So they waited for their arrival with plans already made, and all unfolded as she’d foreseen.

Maybe not all.

It had surprised Arya to find lust in Gendry’s eyes when they reunited, to watch the bright blue darken every time he dared take in her form. She had been trained to spot desire, and he brimmed with it, so unbridled his looks made her all hot inside. He was clueless, and a good thing, but he grew more daring everyday. Regardless, Gendry was a comforting, effortless presence at her side. It was unnerving some, to feel so at his mercy… though it was not like Arya could help it. Where was she to escape him? Theirs was a cold and bleak journey, the landscape was dismal, their trudging exhausting, but when they made camp she could nest within his warmth. _And he enjoys it too._ It was another thing she could see, the way she'd been taught to catch the fleeting feelings that twitched the muscles on the face of men: Gendry was fond of her, he liked holding Arya almost as much as she liked being in the confines of his embrace, that she was sure of. More remained a mystery, but that sufficed for the nonce: fondness and lust, the one and the other things that rarely graced the face of those who looked upon the Wolf. Fear and deference, that was most common. She found respect too, admiration even, and sometimes lewd desire, but born from the whim of men who aspired nothing more than to win her. She was no prize, and gave herself willingly. She wasn't letting go of Gendry, couldn't abide to part from him ever again. 

That thought gave her pause. _What is it that dares bloom midwinter?_ She turned her head from the path ahead and looked at him, there to her side as always. He’d become a much better rider since they’d escaped Harrenhal.

“What?” he asked when he noticed her staring. But before she could answer Harwin called to her right.

“Lady Stark,” he said, and pointed at a large and gnarled oak, dark and imposing. On its trunk a face had been carved. A splintery ragged mouth, a straight nose, two deep all seeing eyes. “Who could have done that?”

Arya looked into the face. _The tree loves me well,_ Arya knew, but she didn’t know what to answer Harwin.

“Don’t you know your gods anymore, northman?” she asked instead and never stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hard as this chapter was, I hope the next one will be posted within one week tops. It's a Gendry POV and much of it is written already.  
> Also, this story sort of could continue forever, I guess, now that I'm bulting a sprawling post-canon universe for it and having the most fun with it. I guess I'll try to finish this fic where I intended in the first place, but maybe turn it into a series and see what happens next...


End file.
